


we push and pull like a magnet do

by toppermostofthepoppermost



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Sex Shop, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Bad Jokes, Beyoncé References, Dirty Talk, Eventual Smut, Fashion & Couture, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Grease References, Happy, Happy Ending, Humor, M/M, Neighbors, Oh, Tattoos, also a bit of, and lots of mentions of my queen:, because i can't write smut without it apparently?, bye also jenn i hope you like this!! <3, god this fic is so silly im totally sorry for all the, idk how else to tag this, lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 12:35:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10307855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toppermostofthepoppermost/pseuds/toppermostofthepoppermost
Summary: College AU. There are theft accusations, flying butt plugs, beach roadtrips, ridiculous playlists, and two very different boys who might just be falling very hard for each other.(Maybe. Possibly. John isn't even stressing about it.)(Except he is. Obviously.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glimmerkeith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimmerkeith/gifts).



 

 

 

 

John likes to think of himself as a chill dude who makes sensible decisions.

Which. Okay. Maybe trying to maneuver a seven-feet-long cutting table up two flights of stairs wasn’t the textbook definition of a sensible decision, and maybe his chill is being tested right now, but moving out of one’s childhood home _should_ be a journey of self-discovery, he thinks.

“God fucking dammit,” John summarizes. He’s only been a university student for the grand total of five hours, and so far he’s eaten three-quarters of a spoiled Twix bar for breakfast, spent twenty very confusing minutes in the Econ classroom by mistake, gotten lost in his new apartment complex twice, and managed to get his only valuable piece of furniture stuck down a stairwell.

So, John needs a miracle. Or a new life. Or, like, a friendly neighbour with strong arms, at least.

He could ring a random bell, he guesses; _but_ he could also spend the little energy he has left in faking a loud, melodramatic groan—so John does just that. It’s obviously a very sensible decision.

“Fucking hell, this shit is _heavy_!” he yells, with his hands decidedly tucked inside his pockets. Nothing. He tries again, “I wonder if _anyone_ around here could _help me out_ —“

Which brings him to, The First Life-Altering Moment of His Uni Years:

With a long-suffering sigh, someone pops open a door on the upper floor, walks out to the landing where half of John’s cutting table is clinging to dear life, and. Well. John is actually disoriented for a moment, until his brain catches up with his eyes and _holy fuck_ —New Neighbour is _hot._

He’s also in his briefs. And a Beyoncé hoodie. And wearing polka-dot socks with _sandals_ , for some terrible reason. But he is _hot_ , so John could totally get a) past the bloke’s hideous clothing choices and b) straight into his bed, like. Now. Yesterday. Whenever he manages to move this stupid table out of the way.

New Neighbour looks a bit taken-aback when he spots John, though, like a puppy who barked too loud and startled himself. Apart from being hotter than an active volcano, this guy is pretty damn cute. John should probably stop sexualizing him. “Uh, hi? I’m—”

“No shit,” Actual Angel with An Inconvenient Fashion Sense says. “You’re the burglar again, aren’t you? Listen, mate, just give us the stupid wand set back, okay? And I won’t call the cops on you. My roommate’s fucking _insufferable,_ you know.”

What. “What?”

“The Harry Potter wand set?” Unfair Puppy Eyes adds. “You should know this, since you _stole_ it and everything, but it was apparently signed by the old woman who turns into a cat. Like, in the movies. And my dork of a roommate is freaking out non-stop about that being his, uh,” he air-quotes, “ _most prized possession._ So, yeah, give it back or I’ll…hit you. In the face.”

John has the sneaking suspicion that this bloke might actually be serious, because he takes his hands out the pocket of his hoodie and rolls up his sleeves. Important Revelations: His arms are tattooed. His _fingers_ are tattooed.

And John should probably say something like _please let me explain_ or _I’m actually just moving in_ or _I would_ never _steal from a fellow Potterhead, you muggle,_ but all that comes out when New Neighbour steps closer is, “I’ve got a bit of a pain kink, you know.”

What the _fuck_. Why. Just why is he like this. Maybe it’s not too late to throw himself down the stairs and fake his own death.

At least it makes Hot Mess stop in his tracks and arch a perfectly shaped (plucked?) eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“I mean that if—like, you’d have to punch me real hard, or it wouldn’t be an entirely bad thing on _my_ end,” John explains, anxiously waving a hand around. “Also, uh, I’m not actually a thief? I’m just moving in.”

Fit Boy blinks at him in stunned silence, lowering his arms and slowly unclenching his fists. His _inked_ fists. This is a tragedy. “And you chose to tell me the pain kink thing first,” he says finally.

Aw, crap. John is probably on a Creepy Neighbours list now. “I’m…sorry? I freaked out,” he says, doing a remarkably good job of Looking Anywhere but at This Devastating Creature’s Crotch. “I like your—hoodie.”

The guy’s shoulders relax at that and he actually smiles. What he says is, “Oh, thanks. Bey is pretty fucking cool, isn’t she? Like half the songs on her new album are about feminism and celebrating powerful women. Actual role-model.” What John hears are the skies opening and a marching band of angels blasting _Beyoncé: Platinum Edition_ above Sex On Legs’ perfect face. And then, “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to—well, I did, but—I’m sorry I freaked you out with my theft accusations? My roomie’s been driving me mad. I’m Paul, by the way.”

“John,” John says, instead of _holy shit,_ _Paul? Just like my tattooed future husband,_ which is totally what he’s thinking. “I’m willing to leave your awful first impression behind us if you help me carry this thing up to the third floor.”

“Deal,” Paul agrees instantly, taking a step closer and setting both hands at the end of the cutting table. “I’ll just grab it from behind and let you guide me, then, yeah?”

Right, yes. Grab it from behind. John is going to pop a semi right in the middle of this stairwell. “Yeah, mate,” he clears his throat, “however you see fit.”

As they make their way upstairs, Paul asks John if he’s _having a small nation over for dinner tonight, or something_ , and John tells him that _no_ , this isn’t a dinner table, it’s a cutting table—for sewing purposes—and that as of, like, earlier this morning, he’s officially a Fashion Design student at the UAL. At that, Paul starts talking about the America’s Next Top Model finale like it won’t make John fall in deep sweet love with him in about 0.4 seconds, and, well.

Could be worse, John thinks.

He learns that Paul is studying to be an Audio Engineer, which Paul says it’s just a fancy way to say record producer; that he’s currently working as an artist in a tattoo studio, and that he is the ripe old age of twenty-two. These all very shocking revelations, considering that a) John’s musical knowledge ends in the twelve-second flute rendition of We Wish You A Merry Christmas he learnt in elementary school; b) John is weirdly wary of needles for someone who aspires to sew for a living—tattoos are way out of his comfort zone; and c) John is only barely eighteen.

Anyway. “Have you heard about the man brought in by the Fashion Police?” John asks casually as they maneuver the table through his flat’s door.

Paul frowns, looking a bit out of breath. “Uh, I haven’t?”

It’s probably too early in this relationship to break out the bad jokes, but whatever. “They questioned him over his,” John makes a dramatic pause, “ _criminal ties._ ”

“God, you’re awful.” It’s not very surprising that Paul makes eye-rolling look hot. “I’ll need to find a way to have you evicted.”

John laughs as they set the table down. His new flat is tiny, the cramped kitchenette less than five steps away from his bed, but he already plugged the PlayStation in front of his donut-shaped beanbag, stored the fridge with beer thanks to his Actually Not Fake ID and had a celebratory wank to christen the place. It’s kind of his home now, John guesses. He thinks it’s pretty cool.

Pleased with himself, John looks up at Paul and starts asking, “Do you wanna have a beer or—“at the exact same time that Paul mumbles, “Uh, I should probably go now.”

Okay, that’s awkward. John wants to set himself on fire for the three and a half seconds it takes Paul to laugh it off with a, “Sorry, mate, I gotta wake up my roomie and get to the studio in a bit. And I also need to put on some jeans.”

What. No. Petition for Artsy Demigod to never wear any article of clothing ever again. “Yeah, okay,” John says, definitely not heartbroken over this. Definitely _chill_. “See you around, then?”

“Sure,” Paul smiles, his eyes crinkling a bit on each side. God is real. “Our door is 2A, if you need anything.”

 

 

;;

 

 

          

 

 

“John. _John._ John!”

“What.”

“Can you stop using my work computer to stalk that guy’s Facebook, please?”

John crosses his arms and spins the swivel chair around to face Ringo, feeling a bit like a Bond villain whose only evil masterplan is wasting work hours. “It’s not considered creepy if he added me first. Also, he has a lot of shirtless pics on the beach.”

Ringo sighs theatrically. He’s holding a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs in one hand and a leather riding crop in the other, and he looks like he’s more than ready to strangle John with either of them. “Just so we’re clear, you’re an awful employee.”

“Babe, you _love_ me,” John says, adjusting his glasses before spinning back to the computer. “I think I’ll just ask him to tattoo something on my butt.”

Ringo snorts. “Subtle.”

“I can’t find any good design to say _I’d gladly let you fingerfuck me against our building’s wall,_ though,” John huffs, clicking around on a Google Image Search result page that would be scandalously NSFW if they didn’t happen to work at a sex shop. “Like, it needs to be classy.”

Ringo sets a pink eco-friendly bag over the desk before producing a small penis shaped stapler from his pocket. “I’m pretty sure _classy_ and _public sex_ cancel each other out, love,” he tells John as he staples a bunch of receipts to the bag. “Now go make these deliveries, yeah? I know your arse is heavy, but you need to try and move it around a bit sometimes.”

“Ha-ha. Very funny.”

It’s kinda hot outside to go around delivering strap-ons and vibrators by bike, but John isn’t one to complain when it comes to being the Santa Claus of sexual fulfillment. This is his _thing_ , like quoting the entirety of Love, Actually by heart or beating his aunt at Candy Crush, so John runs through his usual mental checklist (helmet: secured; earbuds: working; One Direction: on) and flips Ringo the finger before pedalling away.

He might still be thinking about butt tattoos. See, it’s been two surprisingly eventful weeks in the Fit New Neighbour department:

  * Thirteen days ago, the night after John’s Fateful Encounter With Hot Paul From 2A, there was a knock on his door. It was almost 1 a.m. and John was binge watching The X-Files and the conclusion he obviously jumped to was _this is it, aliens. Polite, door-knocking aliens. I’m being abducted._



He might’ve screamed. At the end, it happened to be only Kind George From 2A, aka Paul’s roomie, who swung by with an oddly-timed housewarming gift of takeaway pizza.

  * They ended up watching Harry Potter: The Half-Blood Prince and discussing Hogwarts houses until George fell asleep on John’s floor. He turned out to be a pretty stand-up bloke and also Relevant to John’s Interests, John’s interests being shagging Paul and having his babies.
  * Then it was radio silence for, like, ten dreadful days—until John came back from class one grey, muggy Friday to find Paul smoking a cig outside their building. They talked about the previous night’s Arsenal match. They _laughed_. John threw some shade at Paul for wearing crocs, because really. All in all, it was the most exciting five-minute conversation of John’s week—and that might’ve been because the only other person he small-talked with was his aunt when she Skyped him for help on how to set up a Netflix account, but still.
  * Then John woke up on Saturday to a Facebook request from Paul McCartney, which was still there after he pinched himself in the arm three times. He might’ve rung Ringo. He might’ve also accidentally liked a profile pic from 2009 and screamed for the whole apartment complex to hear. Again.



So now it’s Tuesday, and the only thing John is sure of is that, anytime now, one of his neighbours is gonna call the cops because of all the yelling going on inside the flat.

Whatever. John turns up his phone’s volume, because No Control is his jam, and resolutely does _not_ think about Paul tattooing him on the arse. Or about Paul’s tattoos. Or Paul’s arse. This is a McCartney-free zone.

That is, until The Unthinkable happens: Louis Tomlinson hits a high note (God, that boy is _so_ underrated, he _makes_ this song) and John closes his eyes to really _feel_ it, which isn’t the smartest thing he’s ever done while pedalling a bike full of dildos across a crowded park, then rides straight into—honestly, what are the goddamned chances—Paul McCartney: Professional Babe.

Emergency Weather Alert: it’s raining butt plugs, hallelujah. Over and around the general area where John falls face-first on the grass, followed by his bike and an empty sex shop bag.

Fucking shit. Next time this happens, he’s just gonna swerve into oncoming traffic.

In unrelated news, Paul McCartney is having a laughing fit two steps away, which John thinks is totally worth being hit in the head with a flying dildo. “Mate,” Paul manages, breathless. “ _Mate_.”

“ _Don’t,_ ” John warns him, his voice muffled by…grass. This is a disaster. “Just. Help me up, yeah? There are kids over there and I’ve got two vibrators on me—“

“Do you now? Kinky,” Paul says, because he’s obviously an awful human being. At least he offers a hand to pull John up.

“You’re an idiot,” John tells him when he’s finally on his feet, sliding his glasses back on—and wow, okay, he wasn’t ready to see this supermodel of a boy in high-definition glory. Paul’s got _stubble_ today, actual Hot Older Boyfriend stubble, and the curly tip of his quiff falls effortlessly on his forehead like he’s fresh out of a Grease remake. How unfair. “Uh,” John adds, very eloquent. “I’m sorry I ran into you and probably hit you with a butt plug?”

“It was a bottle of lube, actually,” Paul says, crouching to grab a coconut-flavoured Astroglide that landed next to his, well—pretty horrendous pair of neon-green running shoes. He’s also wearing track shorts and a bright orange t-shirt that looks three sizes too big. This guy is lucky he’s got a face that looks hand-sculpted by angels of the highest order, John thinks, because his fashion sense really is shit. “So where are you taking this, exactly?”

“Can’t tell you,” John says. He watches Paul bend over again to pick up a couple of stray vibrators and wonders if he should, like, help him out instead of staring at how round and perky his bum is. “I take people’s privacy very seriously.”

Paul looks up at John with the kind of shit-eating grin that can only belong to a man who got an accidental Facebook like on a shirtless picture from 2009 last night. Ha. Privacy. “Are you some kind of…” he points the wrapped riding crop he’s holding at John, then to the bike, “environmentally friendly sex toy delivery boy?”

John snorts. “Perhaps I am.”

“How does one even get a job like that? Did you harass a sex shop owner with terrible sex-themed puns until they gave up and employed you?”

That sounds like an impressively accurate retelling of John and Ringo’s friendship, actually, but Paul doesn’t have to know. He also doesn’t have to know that John applied to this job because of the employee discount on lacy lingerie. Details, details. “Well, my thighs are pretty good. I can ride the bike across London all morning without really getting tired,” John says, because he wants Paul to start associating him with The Art Of Riding Stuff. Specifically cocks, if he’s honest. “I also know my way around most BDSM equipment _and_ I’m a very charming lad, you see? That bit helps with the sales.”

“That you are,” Paul says. “You know, I slept with someone from my street jazz classes once who insisted on tying me head-down from the ceiling with a piece of rope.”

“What?” Oh sweet jazz dancing Jesus, _what._

“He had these rings on the ceiling, you know, right in the middle of his bedroom—“ Paul hangs the eco-bag full of sex toys on his shoulder and waves his hands around in a vague gesture, like they’re discussing the weather instead of a very kinky BDSM scene, “—above the bed. Dude asked to tie my ankles to them, and he was kinda hot, had a beard and all, so I thought—whatever. Gonna hit that upside down if necessary.”

THIS IS NOT A DRILL. REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Holy shit, life is clearly paying John back for all the times he had to show someone how to wear a strap-on or explain what a cock ring is to an old lady, because Paul McCartney is gay. Or bi, maybe—bisexuality erasure is a terrible thing, John reminds himself.

 “—but it was good in the end, even if I’m not much of a—sub. You know what they say, don’t knock it ‘till you try it,” Paul adds. “I heard the bloke has some sort of BDSM club thing going on now.”

They are walking. Or, well, Paul is walking, saying something about the blood rushing to his head and how it was kinda reckless to do that with a guy he barely knew—John follows him a bit unsteadily on the bike, his brain stuck on _a guy, a guy, a guy_. As in italicized, bolded, underlined **_BLOKE_**. As in Human With A Penis.

This may just be the single greatest thing that has happened to John since butt plugs.

 

 

;;

 

 

Paul is an awful story-teller. He talks painfully slow, goes off on every possible tangent and says _you know?_ every three sentences. John, who has never been patient enough to hold conversations that only get progressively further away from the point without wanting to die, is surprisingly unbothered by it.

See, Paul makes it _interesting_. It may take him ninety minutes to get to _why_ George suspects the landlord’s dog is the culprit behind the Long Lost Harry Potter Wand Set, but the story includes a trip to Disneyland Paris, a chewed-up Christmas hat, a really ugly Voldemort tattoo and, like, three baby goats. John is totally here for this shit.

They deliver everything in the eco-bag, John on the bicycle and Paul running next to him. “I was working out, you know,” Paul tells John when they’re making their way back, as he jogs along to the bike’s speed. “Before you almost beheaded me with a flavoured Astroglide.”

John snorts with laughter. “You’re a bit dramatic, aren’t you?”

“I’m not! I could’ve died, Jonathan!”

“Oh, really?”

“Really,” Paul says breathlessly, stopping and exhaling loudly. “Just imagine the headlines,” he adds, arms lifted to create an invisible banner: “Death By Freaky Lube Missile In Public Park—Hottest Bloke In London Will Be Sorely Missed.”

“I didn’t know I was going to die, too.”

“Cheeky,” Paul says. His face is shiny with sweat, dark curls stuck to his damp forehead and cheeks flushed red, and he’s absently watching the small shops that pack the sidewalk across them—an outdoor coffee place that has a small bucket full of flowers on every table; a souvenir shop with tourists wandering in and out; an ice cream parlour where the doors are thrown open and soft pink helium balloons line the front—but he looks back at John before saying, “Are you getting back to work now? Because I still kinda owe you that beer.”

Oh, shit. This is Happening. John really wants to play it cool, but he almost falls from the bike again because _holy fuck._ When he manages to stop stumbling over thin air like a newborn deer, he clears his throat and says, trying to sound at least a bit chill, “It’s _midday,_ Macca.”

Ha. Like this is not the second best thing to happen since butt plugs.

Paul shrugs. “Maybe we can have a smoothie? I think the ice cream place over there is vegan.”

Tattooed and athletic and a feminist and _vegan_. John is not chill at all. “Yes! I mean, okay. Um. Yeah. Sounds good.”

Fifteen minutes later they’re sitting in the shade of the shop’s awning, John having a raspberry-quinoa-yogurt shake and a gluten-free muffin, Paul having a banana smoothie, a double-chocolate brownie, and a strong disdain for John’s _“pretentious new-age Pinterest food.”_

“George told me the other day that broccoli juice helps him open his _third eye,_ ” Paul says. He talks with his mouth full, apparently, and it isn’t nearly as disgusting as it should be. “Like, what does that even mean? I’d rather have two eyes and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.”

“You’re very opinionated about this for someone who’s currently drinking an almond milk based smoothie.”

“But that’s because I don’t want cows to be abused at a factory farm,” Paul argues. “Not because I’m trying to unblock my,” he air quotes, “ _throat chakra_ or something.”

John takes a long slurp and swallows before saying, “I don’t think that’s a thing.”

“Mate, it’s _definitely_ a thing, George has like three books on it. I use them as door stoppers for the bathroom sometimes.”

They eat in silence for a bit, knees pressed together on the small bench, John sneaking glances at the tattoos scattered across Paul’s arms out of the corner of his eye.

“Do you know where these people learnt to make ice cream?” Paul asks after a little while, the hint of a smile curling the corners of his mouth.

“Where?”

Paul chuckles to himself. “At Sundae school.”

He’s an idiot.

This is the best day ever.

 

 

;;

 

 

 

  

 

 

;;

 

 

John doesn’t know what he expected, but it definitely wasn’t Paul McCartney In Pink Booty Shorts.

(Not that he’s complaining or anything.)

“Morning, mate,” Paul says around a mouthful of cereal. He’s also wearing kneepads, a highlighter-orange pair of Adidas, and a loose tank-top with a picture of Bugs Bunny riding a skateboard.

No leotard for the dancing classes, then, John guesses. That’s a bit disheartening. It still takes him like five embarrassing seconds to blink out of his booty-shorts-induced trance. “Uh. It’s half past one?”

“Whatever, Jonathan,” Paul waves the box of Coco Pops he’s holding around. “Just thought I’d help you carry your stuff to the car.”

John’s stuff is a 3 lbs. tent, his The 1975 hoodie, and a toothbrush. In theory, he should tell Paul that he’ll get this downstairs on his own, since the backpack he takes to Uni every morning is easily three times heavier. In practice, though, only a fool would say no to this GQ-cover-worthy person.

“You should get a potted plant, you know,” Paul tells him as they walk down the stairs, the bag with John’s tent hanging from his shoulder. “Like, I think owning a living thing kinda gives people the impression that you know what you’re doing.”

“Are you implying that I do _not_ know what I’m doing?” John asks. He’s carrying his toothbrush in one hand and the box of cereal in the other, which is making him feel pretty useless already without someone passing judgement on his life choices. At least he gets to walk two steps behind Paul and look at The Butt. “Also, that is exactly why I told you I wanted a pigeon.”

“You can’t expect a poor pigeon to stand your daily one-man renditions of Chicago, John. That’d be plain cruel,” Paul says as he pushes the front door open, and. Crap. John didn’t think the walls in this building were so thin. “We got a cactus when we moved in—requires minimal effort but still makes you feel like you’ve got your life together.”

“But I _do_ have my life together!” John wails. There’s a loud chirp nearby, probably from a bird that _gets him._ See? John would obviously be an awesome bird-owner. He’s a natural.

George is already loading a beer crate into the cargo bed of his red pickup truck when they get to the curb, his sleeves rolled up and a pair of sunglasses perched on his nose. “Hey, bro,” is how John greets him before grabbing a handful of Coco Pops and stuffing them into his mouth. “Could you please tell Paul here that I’m totally aces at this whole adulting thing?”

Without looking up, George says, “You mistook shaving cream for toothpaste the other day and cried, John. We worry.”

Fair point. John had spilled coffee on Pete’s favourite fabric that morning, had stubbed his toe on the table three different times, and had somehow accidentally deleted all his Candy Crush progress, though. Crying was obviously imminent. “You guys are the worst neighbours ever,” he lies, chewing loudly on Paul’s cereal. Maybe he should just accept defeat and get himself a cactus. Or a flytrap, those look pretty badass. “I don’t even know why I associate with you.”

Paul seems to think it through for a moment. “Probably for the free beer,” he decides. “Or because I’m hot.”

What the fuck. John almost chokes to an untimely death on a Coco Pop.

He’s starting to get the sneaking suspicion that Paul is onto him.

 

 

;;

 

 

Two o’clock finds John crammed up between Ringo and Ivan From Paul’s Footie Team in the cargo bed of George’s pickup, an opened six pack safely tucked between his legs and a bunch of people he may or may not remember from Paul’s Facebook pictures sitting across him.

It’s the perfect weather to go camping in, sunny and clear and just a bit breezy. The truck roars to life to a collective cheer after George’s fourth try, and Paul pushes a cassette into the old audio system before closing the passenger’s door with a loud rattle and whooping, a hand fist-bumping the air through the pickup’s window. John just sips on his beer, pointedly ignores that Ringo is already discussing comic books with the dude next to him like they didn’t meet four seconds ago, and tries not to feel too out of place.

That proves to be very, very hard when the first chords of We Go Together start playing and there’s a general groan. What? Who are these people? Why can’t they appreciate the gift to the film industry that is Grease, aka the best musical after Chicago and Rocky Horror? How does one listen to the rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong without jamming along? John doesn’t know.

“Oh God, who let Paul pick the music again?” A blonde bloke says. _Nobody asked for your input, blonde bloke,_ John thinks. _Paul is perfect and you kinda smell like onions._

“Shut up, Eric!” Paul shouts from inside the truck. “I called dibs like two weeks ago!”

“But this is awful,” Eric moans. “I brought my dad’s ACDC cassette, c’mon.”

George leans out the window to look behind him like he isn’t currently driving through a very busy interception and says, “Can’t change it now, mate! The engine shuts off if we touch the radio and I’m not starting this piece of shit up again!”

“What? How is that even a possible engine malfunction?” A redheaded boy (Stan, was it?) asks. “I swear to God if I have to listen to John Travolta sing for four consecutive hours I’m gonna throw myself in front of the nearest car.”

This is outrageous. John wants to complain, but Ringo swerves his head around and fixes him with a look that says _we just met these people, now is NOT the time to start an argument over John Travolta’s vocal range._

What the fuck ever. John gives Ringo a silent _you’re not the boss of me, Richard_ look before saying, “I think it’s a cool song.”

Ten points for Slytherin, which is definitely John’s Hogwarts house. Everyone around him seems to be over this conversation already, though, two blokes half-shouting about Stranger Things and Eric arranging a FIFA tournament with Ivan—and, well. That’s kinda anticlimactic. You can’t win them all, John thinks. At least Redheaded Boy rolls his eyes at him and Grease keeps playing in the background.

As they leave the rush-hour London bustle, car horns and clustered buildings dissolving behind the countryside’s green flurry of pines and maple trees, the heat on John’s skin becomes increasingly harder to ignore. He rolls up his jeans a bit, lets his head fall against the cold back window of the pickup and cracks open a fresh beer. If they don’t get pulled over and arrested for the alarming amount of weed and booze there is in this truck and George keeps breaking every single speed limit, maybe they’ll make it to Blackpool before the sun sets and John will get to swim a bit.

Their first stop is near the outskirts of Oxford, where the hills are littered with tiny paint-peeled houses and vibrant red and yellow bushes trace the edge of the road. Paul, Stan, Ringo and Colin take a picturesque wee as the pickup’s engine roars on, You’re The One That I Want playing for the second time through the crackly speakers, and this is fine, John thinks, these people are kinda funny and interesting, even if half of them can’t appreciate a good musical film.

Next to him, Ivan cups a hand around the spliff he’s lighting up, legs crossed and a shock of white-blond hair falling over his eyes. “So,” he turns to look at John and smiles, eyes crinkling, “I heard you’re my new neighbour.”

John blinks at him, because what. The fact that he can hear Paul zipping up his horrible knee-length shorts two feet away isn’t helping him focus, either. “Um. I’m. Uh, are you sure?”

Ivan laughs, scratching his stomach. “Yeah, man! My flat is in 3B, actually! George told me you just moved somewhere in the third floor too, right?”

Oh. _Oh._ It’s Important Revelations Time again, then. If this dude is not only Paul’s friend but also lives in their building, he’s probably gonna be crucial in the plot of John’s ongoing plan to get Paul to fuck him. “I did, yeah. Like three weeks ago now,” John says. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around, though?”

“I came back from Sussex yesterday, was there for a month,” Ivan explains as the guys hops back on the cargo bed.

John hears Paul slam shut the passenger door and they start speeding up again. “Holidays?” he asks, over the revving of the engine.

“No, my boss sent me, actually. It did feel like a break from my usual nine-to-five desk shift though, so I’m not complaining.”

Nine-to-five desk shift. What a blatant, completely uncalled for reminder of how much older than John these people really are. “Never been to Sussex—it looks right posh. You always travel for work?”

Ivan laughs and takes a long drag. “I don’t, not at all. Which is funny, because I’m actually working for National Geographic now, and people are usually like _woah, you’re probably travelling all the time—_ but I’m just part of the editing team, so I’m in my very own boring cubicle most days and I haven’t even seen, like, one real monkey. Ever.” He rubs his eyes lazily. “And yeah, Sussex is very posh. Paul was afraid I was gonna come back with an accent.”

Ivan shows John a bunch of articles on his phone, fingers thumbing around the screen as he explains the post-production process behind the photographs. After a while, he whips out a huge Nikon from his bag and gives John some watered-down instructions on how to use it, and that’s how John spends an hour taking blurry, overexposed landscape shots on a camera that’s probably worth more than everything he owns.

George pulls to a stop at a petrol station when they’re nearing three and a half hours of straight driving, and everyone stretches their backs and cracks their joints as they jump off the truck, John carefully handing the Nikon back to Ivan and stuffing some of the beer cans in Ringo’s backpack just in case. Five minutes and an empty bladder later, he finds himself looking up and down the neon sign of a tiny Burger King that would be empty if it weren’t for him, George and Paul.

“Where’s everyone else, though?” Paul asks, staring at the menu with narrowing eyes like he’s judging it for not having more vegan options.

“I think some of the guys went to that, uh—very likely haunted Asda next door,” George says through a mouthful of Whopper, “for mosquito repellents or something. And Eric’s probably trying to light your Grease cassette on fire again.”

Just then, Eric walks through the sliding doors with a sly smile and smelling faintly of burning plastic, notices that Paul is standing there with a look that says _I’m going to murder you in your sleep tonight_ , and does a sharp, panicked U-turn to get back outside.

“Dumbfuck,” Paul says when Eric’s gone. “Like I haven’t got two spare cassettes right here in my bag.”

At that, George rolls his eyes and heads straight out the door. “Okay, I’m done. Completely done.”

“What?!” Paul yells after him. “Come _on_ , it’s only the best musical _ever_ —“

With a defeated huff, Paul crosses his arms and goes back to inspecting the sign hanging from the ceiling. Aw, shit. He’s pouting a bit and it’s like—it’s like really, really endearing. John is probably being punished for doing some terrible shit in a past life.

Right. Conversation. John clears his throat before asking, “Do you really have two extra copies, or?”

“Obviously. But it’s a _secret,_ ” Paul says, looking down at him through thick eyelashes. God, he’s got at least some good five inches on John and that shouldn’t be hot but it is and is John gonna pop a semi in an empty Burger King? Maybe. “Are you planning on destroying them, Jonathan? Because there’s been two arson incidents this past month already and I might have to punch the next offender in the face.”

John is all in for Paul punching him in the face. “Um, I’m not? I have it on DVD, actually, I’m a massive fan. You could borrow it and copy the songs to your notebook if you want a more…uh, fireproof format.”

Paul just blinks at him.

“It also has some cool behind the scenes clips, and there’s this bit where John Travolta gives you dancing lessons,” John adds, unsure of himself.

“Oh,” Paul says finally, eyes bugging. “I thought you were taking the piss, when you said it was a good song.”

“What? No! I love it! I mean, Chicago will always be the absolute pinnacle of musical films, but Grease is definitely in my top three.”

Paul looks at him curiously for a moment, head lolling to the side, but then his ridiculous set of eyebrows shots up and he smiles. “I think I’m gonna have to keep you around, then.”

Ha. So Paul has two backup cassettes of Grease and the best arse John’s seen in his entire life and he wants to _keep John around_. This is it, they’re practically married.

Before he has a chance to respond, Stan is coming through the door and brushing past him to squeeze Paul’s shoulder; which is probably for the best, because John would’ve likely launched into a full-blown performance of Put A Ring On It if left to his own devices. “George’s waiting for ya,” Stan says, like the pickup’s engine isn’t currently piercing the eardrums of everyone in the vicinity of this Burger King. “Says we might catch the sunset if we rush a bit. Ivan’s hyped.”

Stan is not only royally ignoring John but also looking at Paul like Stan is starving and Paul is a hot-dog eating contest stand, so John might be a little biased, but. He doesn’t like Stan at all. Not a tiny bit. He smells like he masked two days of sweat with an entire bottle of Axe, talks in this monotone, detached tone, and is constantly staring at Paul from a very creepy distance. So far John has had no proof that the dude isn’t actually a robot wearing the skin of one of his human victims.

“Guess we’ll have to get going, then,” John says straight to Stan’s back. What? He’s sleeping in a tent tonight, angering a potential serial killer doesn’t seem like the best possible idea.

“Yeah. I want some fries and a veggie wrap, though,” Paul says, jerking his shoulder roughly so Stan’s hand falls off and taking a step towards the counter. Stan just shrugs before walking off the way he came, sliding doors closing silently behind him, and Paul smiles back at John like they didn’t just share the most awkward two minutes in human evolution. “Are you ordering anything, Frenchy?”

Okay, so they’re using nicknames from Grease now. “Excuse you, but I’m clearly Rizzo,” John says, palming his pockets. Apparently his net worth consists of three sad coins and a very old lip balm. Whatever. “And, uh, it’s a no on the food front. I’m okay.”

Paul narrows his eyes at him, and they stay crinkled like that as his mouth curls up into a smile. “C’mon, you idiot, you can pay me back when we’re in London.”

It’s a mess. Only after they’re huddled shoulder-to-shoulder against the back of the truck’s cargo bed, Eric having called shotgun on the passenger seat half an hour ago and the bassline of You Shook Me All Night Long ripping through the empty road, does John realize that buying two large Cokes might have not been their brightest idea ever. “Shit, we’re gonna spill this all over everyone’s stuff.”

“Whatever,” Paul shrugs, taking a huge bite out of his veggie wrap and popping two fries into his mouth immediately after. Which doesn’t look nearly as gross as it probably should. “D’you want some fries?”

“Yeah, wait, let me find the ketchup,” John says, fishing a couple of packets out of their Burger King’s paper bag.

Of course, Paul goes to grab a fry before John’s done squirting the ketchup on them and gets a packet-worth of it all over his hand. “Shit,” he laughs, casually drawing two fingers into his mouth to lick them clean. John is three panicked seconds away from a minor heart attack. “Sorry, I’m starving. God, I’m really gonna need a run tomorrow, this goes straight to my arse.”

That startles a laugh out of John and he has to quickly press his mouth shut not to spit half-chewed veggies all over Paul’s face, which would cut his already very low chances of getting laid down to subzero. After he manages to remember how the process of swallowing goes, he says, “I could always make you a kale detox smoothie.”

Paul stops chewing on his fries for long enough to mumble, “Don’t even get me _started_.”

The weather starts dropping as the sun goes down, the damp, sticky heat whisked away by a pleasant wind that whistles on John’s ears as they speed down the last rocky stretch of road leading to the beach. Soon there’s sand stretching out like a pillow under the truck’s worn tires, the metallic sound of zippers being pulled up, the salty, sharp smell of the sea, and then John is jumping off the cargo bed and watching in silent wonder how pink and green and orange blend together across the sky. “Woah.”

“I know,” Paul chuckles. He’s looking at Ivan, though, who seems to have landed face-first into the sand with his camera and a huge tripod in tow. “And he has like thirty seconds before the sun sets, tops.”

There’s a general cheer when Ivan finally stands up, sand stuck in the crevices of his sunglasses and dusted all over his clothes. He just flips everyone the V and resumes setting up his tripod. All in all, John’s kinda guy.

“Hey! This is cool,” Ringo says, sliding up next to John and throwing an arm across his shoulders. He points to Paul with the hand that’s holding his beer before asking, “You always do this, then?”

“Sometimes,” Paul shrugs, then takes a noisy sip from his Coke. “It’s hard to get everyone’s schedules to match, but we try to do it like every two or three months, at least. Look at that,” he nods to the horizon.

The sun is sinking into the sea, tipping the ripples on the water a bright gold, and behind it a gradient of pinks and oranges rolls unhurried across the sky. It’s so quiet, without the roar of the engine or the music or the chatter, it feels a bit like they’re encased in their own small bubble. “Never seen anything like that,” John says softly, not wanting to break it. “Not from the city.”

Paul smiles at him, the sunlight turning his skin a warm peach color and tipping his lashes pink. He’s somehow still attractive with his mouth all greasy and the wind pointing his hair in ten different directions, which.

Rude.

 

 

;;

 

 

“Ringo. Rich,” John whispers into the dark blue of their tent. “Wake up, Richard.”

When he gets no response, he reaches over Ringo’s sleeping bag and pinches his nose with two fingers, which at least makes the ungodly snoring stop for a second. “Richie Rich. Ricky Martin. Ricardo.”

Ringo’s eyes shot open and he gasps, shaking his head until John lets go of his nose. “What the fuck, you twatbag,” he half-shouts, “you trying to choke me or some shit?”

Sitting back on his heels, John says, “I’m bored. And cold. And this tent smells like cat pee.”

Ringo’s shoulders drop and he lets himself fall back against the sleeping bag with the sigh of a man that is completely done with human relationships. “You are such a fucking idiot, honestly.”

“My phone ran out of battery, too,” John says, reaching a finger to poke Ringo’s cheek. “D’you have Candy Crush on yours?”

“No.”

“Draw Something?”

“No.”

“Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes?”

“No, you absolute nerd. Now let me go back to sleep.”

John crosses his arms and starts to say, “You must be real fun at sleepovers—,” but is interrupted by a loud series of bangs and crashes outside their tent. “What the fuck,” he whispers quickly. “Is that a murderer?”

“Go to sleep,” Ringo mumbles, unfazed.

“That was definitely glass breaking—oh shit; I bet it’s fucking _Stan_ , I _told_ you the dude was creepy. This is it, he’s gonna kill me.”

“I hope he gets you, you annoying fuck—“

The next few seconds happen very very fast:

1) John hits Ringo in the head with a pillow for being a Terrible Best Friend. Because honestly.

2) The silhouette of a hand appears against the thin fabric of the tent, moving slowly towards the zipper. John can practically hear that freaky song from the shower scene in Psycho playing before a tiny voice says, _hey guys, you awake?_

3) John screams. He only stops after Ringo tells him, “It’s just _Paul_ , you wanker,” and then he’s screaming a bit more into his pillow because yes, that did sound like Paul and John is freaking out in his Iron Man pajama pants like an actual two-year-old.

He’s not getting laid. Ever. Death could actually take him right now in the form of a crazy axe murderer and it’d probably be a kinder prospect.

They lapse into an awkward silence for a moment before Paul asks, “…uh, John? You okay there, mate?”

Ringo mouths _open the tent_ before lying on his back again and closing his eyes. Truly a Terrible, Not Helpful At All Best Friend. In one frantic motion, John takes a deep, panicked breath, tries to get his fringe off his face, and finally zips the tent open.

Paul is crouching in the sand, a red beanie pulled down low on his head and his bright yellow raincoat zipped up all the way, and he stares at John wide-eyed for a second before mumbling, “Uh…hi.”

“Hi,” John answers. “I thought you were a crazy axe murderer.”

Paul chuckles at that, his shoulders dropping. “Yeah, I figured.” he says with a smirk, rubbing his eyes. “I can’t sleep, actually, and I heard you guys talking—thought I’d ask you for some rolling paper, I’m all out.”

It takes John a moment to actually register what Paul is saying, mostly because they’re so, so close he can smell the smoke from the bonfire in Paul’s clothes. When his brain finally catches up, he says “yes, mate, sure,” then rushes to grab his shorts and dig a packet of rolling paper out of the back pocket.

Paul grabs it and smiles his stupid, unfair smile. “Cheers. I’m going for a walk and a smoke, wanna come with?"

“Um.” John pulls the two bottom halves of the tent around his Iron Man pajamas; and he’s considering staying here for the rest of his sad cat-pee-smelling life when Ringo pretends to stretch in his sleep and kicks him on the leg. “OW! I mean, yes!”

“Cool,” Paul smiles, apparently oblivious to John acting like he’s hiding a dead body. “You should probably grab a second hoodie though; it’s fucking cold as all fuck,” he says as he stands up. “I’ve got a red one in my bag, if you wanna match Iron Man’s armor.”

Well, shit. What John wants is to curl up and die, exactly like his poor chances of ever getting to suck this boy’s cock just did. “My black one is fine, thank you,” he stammers.

“Okay, Yves Saint Laurent. Just let me know when you’re ready.”

What a cheeky shit. John just flips him the finger and slips his glasses and his stupid hoodie on.

 

 

;;

 

 

The sea is a dark, dark blue, and they walk along the edge of it with their trousers rolled up in big cuffs, salty air sticking to John’s skin and making his hair feel greasy. Paul absentmindedly kicks the puddles of water that reach him, making splashing sounds and spattering cold flecks all over John’s ankles, and it feels a bit like the beach engulfs them in this loud, damp bubble for a moment, with the whistle of wind roaring in John’s ears and the crash of faraway waves hitting the rocks. They’re quiet in the middle of it, though, fall into a comfortable silence only filled when Paul starts humming one of the songs George played at dinner, _we are running so fast and we never look back and whatever I lack you make up._ John just watches the grey clouds roll slowly across the sky, takes in deep breaths of crisp air and tries not to think too hard about the lyrics.

“How are you doing, then?” Paul asks a little while later. They’re sitting on an old concrete dock, John with both legs swaying over the water, Paul cross-legged and balancing a small Ziploc bag of weed on his thigh. “Like, with the whole moving to your own place thing and your new uni classes—I know it’s a lot.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot,” John smiles. “And it’s loads different from school, obviously, but my professors are nice and I’ve already met a bunch of really cool people—“

“Me easily being the coolest,” Paul says, looking up from the joint he’s rolling between two fingers to give John a wink.

“As if. You’re not even the coolest person sitting on this dock.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Paul laughs, cupping a hand with bright green leaves tattooed on it around the joint to light it up. Maybe he is a teeny tiny bit cool. “Not missing home, then?”

John thinks about it for a moment. “I miss the shower and my mattress and my aunt’s food. And my aunt, a bit, but I’m not crying myself to sleep over it or anything.” Okay, he actually did cry himself to sleep the first two nights, but 1) he was under high emotional distress which 2) should be _normal_. There’s no reason to mention it.

“You always lived with her?”

John nods. “Only us two. She’s kinda cool, you’d like her.” He smiles down in thought, playing absently with a loose thread on the cuff of his hoodie. “I was a piece of shit kid and she somehow managed to turn me into a—uh, a pretty decent almost-grown-up, I guess.”

Paul hums in mock-consideration, his head tilted to the side. “Yeah, you’re passable,” he says, handing the joint to John with a smile.

John chuckles. “And she was so supportive when I came out, too. I didn’t think—I was afraid she wouldn’t be, but she was, and we talked a lot and then she took me to this nice ice cream place near home because I couldn’t stop crying,” he says, feeling a bit like the words are spilling out of him, like Paul’s pulling them out of his mouth with a string. “Um, then like a week later she gave me this gift—bit embarrassing—this pillow she cross-stitched with _your closet is just for the wonderful clothes you make_.”

Paul turns around and looks at him right in the eye, the tiny, twinkling streetlights that line the roads up around the beach casting him in a heady orange blush. “That’s not embarrassing,” he says, serious. “You are very lucky.”

He passes over the joint and John takes a long, silent drag, lets the smoke warm his lungs and his bones and drown something else growing inside him, something he’s not sure he’s got control over. “Was it hard for you?”

“Coming out,” Paul says, his head lolling to the side, “or moving out?”

“Both. Any,” John answers, sitting up straighter and pulling his knees up to his chest, the zipper of his hoodie ice cold against his chin. “Just tell me about you.”

It tumbles out of John’s mouth quick and simple and without him meaning to, but he’s so caught up in the careful way Paul takes the half-burnt joint from his fingers that he forgets to be embarrassed.

Paul drags out the words as he speaks, loose and slow. He tells John about his family, about his mum making him lemon juice ice lollies with toothpicks and an old ice tray and his dad carrying him on his shoulders to his first footie class when he was five, about how he cried for three days straight when his brother Mike was born. John learns about the guitar lessons and the running team and the A+ exams Paul’s mum hung on the fridge and how Paul always needed to be focusing on something rather than the fact that he was different.

Paul tells him, in a wistful voice, that the first time he ever felt like he was part of something was when he sneaked into his parents’ room to watch the Pride with the telly on mute; that the second one was when he kissed his high school boyfriend against the brick wall of his house, ivy leaves tickling the back of his neck; that the third one was when Colin Waters from the footie team gave him a black eye and a bloody nose.

He tells John about the summer his mother got ill, about the cracked leather chairs lining the hospital’s hallway and the smell of flowers and disinfectant and how the m&m’s his dad bought him on the train to the hospital always melted on his fingers. He tells him about the winter after that, when it was only him and Mike and their father, about watching the ivy outside turn a sickly shade of brown and missing footie practice and catching three colds in a month.

Paul tells John about the first morning of spring, when he woke up to the word _FAG_ spray-painted in crude, bright white letters below his bedroom’s window,  and how nothing was ever really the same after that. With careful words, he talks about his father shutting him out like he can’t blame him for it, like all the piggy-back rides and birthday parties and camping trips are fresher in Paul’s memory than the night he was forced to move out of home at seventeen.

John asks Paul if he ever wants children of his own, and Paul replies yeah, absolutely, as soon as possible; and then John asks him if Paul’s maybe already found someone to have them with, anticipation aching at the back of his throat, and Paul tells him that he hasn’t, that he’s long ago given up looking. “I fuck them up,” Paul says, blowing a steady stream of smoke, “relationships.”

“Everyone fucks them up, though,” John tells Paul as he leans in to grab the joint. “Until they don’t. Like, until it’s the right person.”

Sluggishly, Paul shakes his head and lies down on the rocky dock, fingers intertwining at the back of his neck. “Doesn’t work like that.”

For a while, they fall into silence. John watches the boats swaying in the distance, tiny dots of orange light suspended in the endless black sea, watches the dark clouds hanging above them like a threat. When Paul finally speaks again, his voice is raspy and slow, “I think we should be mates.”

What. John furrows his brow; pretty sure they’re currently smoking a joint on a piece of shit dock at like four in the morning—which should be enough proof that they already _are_ mates. His head feels fuzzy and tingly and, when it finally clicks, it feels heavy. “Oh.”

Oh. Mates. As in _just_ mates. As in bros. Pals. Friendly friends who don’t touch each other’s dicks.

Paul rolls onto his side to face John and his short raincoat rides up a bit, exposing a stupid sliver of his stupid, soft, small bump of a belly. Which. Isn’t exactly helping right now. “You seem like a cool guy, and a good friend,” he says quietly, “and I don’t—don’t wanna risk it, you know? I kinda need that, right now. Um. A mate.”

Aw, crap. John’s heart does a weird backflip inside his chest, which probably means he’s dying or something. He’s also so endeared he can’t even feel disappointed about potentially never shagging this newborn puppy of a person. “Okay, yes,” he nods, smiling. “We’ll be mates.”

High John is pretty sure that Sober John is gonna be Ralph-from-the-Simpsons-getting-his-heart-ripped-in-half-by-Lisa-on-national-telly levels of heartbroken over this, because Sober John’s favourite pastime is being a melodramatic idiot. High John, though? That dude is totally above this unrequited love bullshit. That dude’s _chill_. He choo-choo-chooses this.

Through a sickly sweet haze of smoke, Paul smiles back at him, face flushed and eyelids heavy. “You know what?”

“What.”

“I’m really. Fucking. Blazed right now,” Paul says, erupting into a soft fit of giggles. His thick lashes flutter like he’s some kind of R-rated Disney prince and holy _shit_ , yeah, Sober John’s gonna be devastated. “We should—we should—“

Okay, John is laughing now, too, probably because he’s also as high as a fucking kite. Paul is kinda fun, he guesses, with his puffy lips and glassy eyes and the freckles dusting his tiny nose.

Yeah. Proper fun.

“Go,” Paul manages. “We should go. It’s gonna rain soon.”

It’s nearing sunrise when they get to their camping site, the sky a gradient of dark greys blending with velvety purples, a balmy breeze and the distant rumbling of thunder lulling John into a sated, sleepy state. Paul walks quietly beside him, dried sand stuck to the cuffs of his jeans and his checkerboard Vans soaking wet, rubs his reddened eyes roughly with the heels of his hands. “Ugh, I really need a shower.”

“Yeah, me too,” John says, wiping at his nose with the back of his sleeve. “We kinda smell like wet dog. And fish. Like, worryingly out of date fish.”

Paul laughs. “I’ve got enough sand in my arse to fill, like, a small private beach or something, too. George’s probably gonna kick me out.”

“Same,” John smiles, coming to a stop before their row of tents. “See you back here in five, then.”

Paul chuckles. “Sounds brilliant.”

“Okay! Um. Bye?”

“Yeah, uh, bye.”

Paul doesn’t move, so John waves him goodbye weakly and turns on his heels. A gust of cold wind seeps through his hoodie and up his legs as he starts to walk, raising goosebumps along his thighs and bringing him down from his high a bit. He makes it a good ten steps across the sand before he feels Paul’s hand clapping down on his shoulder and turning him around.

“Wait,” Paul says—and holy shit, he really is stunning. John _knows_ that, has always known that, but it strikes him hard and sudden and all over again when he sees him standing there, so tall and so, so close. Shrouded by the muted, monotonous blur of greys and creams of the beach, Paul is like this bright flurry of colour, dark, frizzled hair spilling out from under his red beanie and onto the turned-up collar of his canary yellow raincoat. “Remember what I said earlier? About you and I being just mates.”

John’s heart feels like it’s gonna squeeze out of his chest. “Yeah,” he says quietly, “what about it?”

Paul looks to the rippling sea and frowns, opening and closing his mouth like the words he wants to say are escaping him, then turns back around, yanks John roughly by his hoodie, and kisses him.

It’s the sort of show-stopping kiss at the grand finale of a romance film: deep, harsh, just a bit filthy, and with the credits rolling way too soon. Like, literally, because Paul is pulling back in less than five seconds.

John can’t even help the frustrated sound he makes. Holy mixed signals, Batman.

“I, um. Needed to get that out of my system,” Paul breathes, shifting his weight, hands still fisted in John’s hoodie. “To, like, be mates. We shouldn’t actually do that again.”

John nods frantically. It probably looks a bit terrifying. “Right. Yes. I mean, it was nice and all but yeah—sure,” he babbles. “Could be, uh. Counterproductive to friendship. I _guess_.”

“That was the only time,” Paul adds as he steps back, an amused tilt to his small, puffy, stupid stupid stupid smile.

John could possibly cry. “Only time,” he echoes, “I’m very disciplined.”

 

 

;;

 

 

Except he isn’t. Obviously.

 

 

;;

 

 

After that, though, it’s like everything around them starts falling slowly into place.

Paul texts him early in the mornings, when the dark pinks in the sky are blending with the orange rays of the sun and John smells like warmth and sleep— _hey mate u in for a run? :)_ —and fifteen minutes later they’re jogging amongst the trees at the park near uni, branches tickling their arms, the world a spinning blur of greens and blues.

The tattoo studio is tiny, with white brick walls and long windows that stretch up to the roof and bright daylight spilling onto the houseplants over George’s desk. Paul’s workspace is partitioned off by a fuchsia curtain at the back of the shop—an even smaller space with a tattoo chair, a couch, two wooden stools, and a ton of supplies that Paul disinfects thoroughly before all sessions—and when the stress of classes starts to get to John, it becomes his favourite spot to decompress, with George cracking terrible jokes through a mouthful of crisps and Paul giving throughout after-care instructions to the clients with gorgeous professionalism and the buzzing of the needles relaxing John’s body into the couch.

Some nights, 2A gets overcrowded, the fridge full with a never-ending supply of booze and George’s Terrible Party Hits playlist playing loudly on repeat. Some other nights it’s just the two of them, and because Paul is, unfortunately, a hipster, he drags John to what’s likely the only remaining rental movie store on Earth, this small, eerie place that smells like burning plastic and looks like it belongs somewhere in the 90s. They walk it up and down for a long while, talking about how neither of them really _feel_ like grown-ups at all and how paralyzing it is to wonder if they ever will; how Paul still keeps an Etch-A-Sketch at the back of his closet and all of his second-hand The Sims disks and how John needs to text Mimi every night or else he won’t fall asleep.

“I think people expect life to start making sense when they turn eighteen or twenty or thirty-five,” Paul tells him, hands in his pockets, eyes trained on the beat-up The Parent Trap DVD case set on the counter. “But, like, that doesn’t really happen, there’s no—no secret manuals or magic switches. Probably ever.”

The balding man behind the counter makes a small sound of approval, his head tilted to the side as he counts Paul and John’s handfuls of loose change.

“That’s kinda scary,” John says.

“Don’t worry,” Paul tells him. “We can just wing it. Everybody’s winging it.”

John just tries not to smile too big and lets Paul buy him a Mars bar.

 

 

 

 

It’s in those moments—when John’s guard is down and Paul is being his genuine, lovely self—that whatever’s going on between them starts to get to John. It creeps up his belly slowly, feels both like warmth swelling inside his chest and an invisible thumb pressing down his windpipe, like contentment and a twinge of anxiety all at once. He tries not to think too hard about it, makes himself swallow it down.

So, yeah. Not all is good in the world. There are hipster movie nights, ridiculous themed parties and some very cool photography lessons with Ivan that get John like twenty new Instagram followers—but there are also nuclear bombs stored somewhere, high crime rates, glaciers melting and, in John’s immediate vicinity, a big dumb crush and a tremendous amount of awful uni assignments.

“Do you reckon there’s life after uni?”

“Dunno, mate. Sounds like a weird concept right now, to be honest,” comes Paul’s voice from behind the gravity-defying pile of text books he’s carrying. “I can tell you there’s life after first year, though. Miserable, miserable life. Am I about to walk into a wall again?”

“No walls, but you should probably turn to your right—now to your left just a bit, but slooowly—there you go, table’s in front of you.”

“You could’ve grabbed a book or two, you know. Lent your mate a hand.”

John gasps, mock appalled. " _What_ —like you didn’t _betray my trust_ yesterday when you left me to carry my sewing machine up five floors of stairs, McCartney. Should be thanking me for not making you bump into the librarian, honestly,” he says, throwing himself onto the nearest chair and opening his sketchbook.

“Her name’s Mrs. Corden. And thank you very much,” Paul says, sitting next to him. “Just to be clear, you’re still a little shit.”

John doesn’t even have time to think of a good enough comeback, because as soon as he looks up he’s confronted with the sight of Paul sliding a pair of glasses on his unfair, carved-from-fucking-marble face. Like. Actual glasses. Bit unfashionable ones, at that, rectangular and narrow and with a thin amber frame, but John wouldn’t have expected more from someone who owns a velour tracksuit. He lets out a most eloquent, “Oh. You. Uh.”

Paul doesn’t look up from his textbook, which is probably for the best. He narrows his eyes and says absently, “Oh. Me. Uh. Are we roleplaying Tarzan? Because you kinda look like him when you don’t shower.”

He’s an idiot. Who unfortunately looks very hot in teacher glasses. “You,” John says again. Shit, Paul probably just gave him brain damage or something. “You wear glasses?”

“Only when I need a rest from the contacts,” Paul says, looking up and lifting the glasses a bit so he can scratch his eyes. “I stayed up studying yesterday and my eyes were hurting a bit this morning, so.”

God, he’s so endearing John has to take a deep breath. What was Past John thinking when he assured Paul that they could be just mates? Honestly, what an idiot. He’s clearly the least disciplined human being alive. “Oh. Right.”

Thankfully, it’s silent after that, just the two of them and their notes and the rain hitting the library’s fogged up windows, so John grabs his sharpest HB pencil and goes back to the sketch he’s supposed to turn in on Friday. Unsurprisingly, this resolve lasts all of the two minutes it takes him to start feeling like every line he’s drawing is worth shit.

He drops face-first into the table and groans. “I’m literally dying right now.”

“We’re all dying,” Paul says as his eyes scan the second textbook on the pile. He’s got purple-ish bags under his eyes and is wearing a hoodie that has a coffee stain on the front and, quite frankly, looks a bit like shit. “Life is meaningless. And your professor has probably seen worse things than whatever it is you’re stressing out over.”

“Very reassuring, that,” John says, his cheek squished against the cool wood. “What happened with your incredibly annoying positive thinking? That’s, like, your thing.”

Paul bites frantically at the end of his Arsenal pen. “It vacated the premises last night, when I realized I had a physics exam in two fucking days,” he says, expression both tired and exasperated, before closing his textbook roughly and setting his pen on top. “Whatever. I’m done. What are you doing?”

“Um—some sketches for the runway,” John says, instead of _I’m thinking about you fucking your frustration out on me, glasses on._ “It’s like two months away, but Mr. Carbonell wants us to hand in a preliminary design next week and I want to jump off the cafeteria’s window because I haven’t got a model,” he sighs. “You know Alex, that curly girl who’s teaching assistant in my CAD systems class?”

“The one with the nose ring?”

“Right, that one. She and Pete have been fucking on and off for like, two months, so _obviously_ the prick had to choose _her_ instead of _me_ for the project, when we had been talking for literal weeks about being each other’s partners, and he can’t possibly walk down the stupid runway twice unless he’s got, like, Hermione’s time turner or something, so now I’ve got no one to wear my designs,” John groans. “God, he’s such a shit.”

Paul rests his chin on both hands and says, “What about Ringo? He’s pretty tall. And lean. And has an incredibly good disposition. I’ve seen those fashion shows a couple of times and they let anyone be your model, doesn’t have to be from uni. This guy I used to shag brought his grandma once—people went crazy over her.”

John looks out the window and sighs dramatically. “Ringo would probably self-immolate before walking down a runway,” he says. “I’ve got, um—this bloke, Klaus, we dated for like two years and he’s an actual high-end model now. Like, that’s his job. I’ve been thinking about texting him because Pete would be so dead if I bring a literal model with me, but you know how contacting an ex usually isn’t the best of ideas and he’ll probably just want to—“

“I could do it.”

 “—fuck me.” John turns around and stares at Paul, unsure if the coronary he’s possibly about to have is making him mishear. “What?”

“I could totally do it!” Paul laughs a short, panicky laugh and starts gesticulating a bit wildly. “I mean! It’s just walking in a straight line, how hard could it be? And, like, texting an ex never worked out for anyone. Ever. So you shouldn’t do that.”

John forgets how to function for about five seconds, mouth hanging open the entire time. He can’t even be bothered about looking like a dumb fish right now.  “I. Okay,” he manages. “I mean, no! You don’t have to.”

“But I want to,” Paul lets out in a rush. “I’ve seen some of your designs too and, um, I think they’d suit me? They’re kinda—you know. My style.”

Coming from someone who un-ironically wears crocs on a daily basis, that is frankly insulting. John lets it go only because Paul’s perky arse is 100%  runway material. “Okay, then. Yay! We’re doing this,” he says. “Can I take your measurements?”

Paul raises his eyebrows at him and looks around. “Like, right now? Here?”

“Uh, yeah? If you couldn’t tell by the industrial amount of tape measures hanging on the wall behind me, that’s literally what the Fashion Design students use this library for.”

Of course it takes less than three minutes for that to come back to bite John in the arse—in the all too well known shape of Paul-induced sexual frustration. God. He should’ve thought this through better. “Um, I’m gonna need you to take off your hoodie. And straighten your back,” he says, a yellow tape measure in one hand and his notebook in the other. Paul pulls his hoodie over his head, thick hair sticking up in ten different directions, and throws it on the floor next to him before squaring his shoulders. The long-sleeved grey t-shirt he’s wearing has tiny holes along the hem and fits snugly across his chest and John wonders briefly how hard he’d have to hit his own head against the window to render himself unconscious. “That’s it. Now look up, I’ll do your neck first.”

Paul tilts his chin up and asks, “This the first time you do this?”

“Um. No. We did it, uh, with some classmates,” John manages, not very capable of eloquence when his fingers are tracing the bright roses tattooed on Paul’s neck. “With the prof giving us directions. First time I do it on my own, though. And for something I designed.”

“Walk me through it, then,” Paul says quietly, facing the ceiling but with his eyes fixed on John. “It’ll help you remember the process.”

John clears his throat and writes down hastily the numbers on the tape. “Okay. Right. I’m gonna measure your shoulder width now, so turn around and face the wall—yes, like that. Thanks. I have to start at the outside edge of your right shoulder,” he says as he moves, holding his breath, “move up the curve of them across your back, and stop on the edge of your left one. There. Forty-eight centimeters.”

“Is that okay? It sounds like a lot.”

“Only two centimeters wider than an average medium size,” John says. “All that professional weightlifting’s not cutting it, apparently.”

“Fuck off,” Paul says, an amused tilt to his voice. “Like you don’t cry for my strong arms to help you when you gotta carry the grocery bags upstairs.”

“Shut up,” John chuckles. “Turn around to face me again. Straighten your back. Lift your arms up.”

“I feel like I’m learning a terrible dancing routine.”

“You’re doing great,” John says, laughing. Is it possible to die from fondness? “Okay, to measure chest width—I gotta wrap this around the fuller part, which is at the same height where your armpits start and at the middle of your shoulder blades.”

Paul looks down at the tape on his chest and mutters, “Now you’re purposely finding ways not to mention my awesome bodybuilder pecs.”

It makes John burst out laughing—which lasts all of the two seconds it takes the librarian to shush him, an index finger to her mouth and her eyes narrowing. After mouthing _sorry_ at her with a not-so-subtle eye roll, John scribbles down _chest width_ _108,5 cm_ on his notebook and then wraps the measuring tape around Paul’s waist easily, his body looser now that he’s sure he knows how to do this.

In a low voice, John tells Paul about the outfit he’s got planned—a white, see-through, button-less chiffon shirt; a pair of high-waisted, pleated black trousers, roomy around the hips but tight on the ankles; and a black silk bomber jacket with colorful embroidery—tigers and leaves and birds and flowers. He miraculously survives measuring the thighs and crotch area, breath held the entire time, and when he’s finished scrawling all the numbers down on his notebook, Paul throws his hoodie back on and watches him sketch the outfit silently, John’s lines more solid than they’ve been in weeks.

Noon finds them huddled on the cold steps of the fashion design building, in the narrow spot where the roof is keeping the marble floors dry; the rain falling in thick sheets and pattering heavily against the glossy pavement. Paul fishes two crushed granola bars from the obscure depths of his backpack and flips through John’s sketchbook while they eat, asks eager questions about fabrics and cuts and colours; and John answers him like he can’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be but here, encased by the musky smell of earth and the fruity smell of Paul’s shampoo.

Paul asks him if he’s always liked sewing—and John, eyes trained on a dip on the sidewalk where raindrops and pine needles are pooling up, tells him that his first sensory memory is the heavy, rhythmic tapping sound of his mum’s old sewing machine; that the second one is running his fingertips up and down bright cotton thread cones, the silky, slippery feeling of it; that the third one is watching his mum draw patterns on a soft fabric with a small piece of dry soap. “She’d strap me into the carrier of her bike and take me with her to the haberdasher’s once or twice a month. She’d let me pick out the fabrics I wanted for my clothes and she’d buy them even if my choices were terrible,” John says with a small chuckle, curling up onto himself. “If I was mad at her, when I got older, I’d pick out the most outrageous ones just to annoy her. Which always backfired in the end, obviously, because she’d get them anyway and it was me who had to wear a hoodie with a Care Bears print at, like, fourteen. She said it _built character_ ,” he air-quotes. “Completely ridiculous.”

Paul smiles down at him, and his eyes are bright and amused and fond and John is so, so gone for him it’s embarrassing. “She sounds lovely.”

“She was good,” John says softly, playing with the muddy end of one of his shoelaces. “I don’t really talk about her much.”

“Why?”

John yanks his hood up against the biting wind and wipes his runny nose with the back of his hand. “Feels like I can’t breathe if I dwell on it too much, like—like there’s someone sitting on my chest,” he says sharply, voice thick like the words are wrapped around his throat. “Makes me angry, too.”

“Is that happening to you now?” Paul asks softly. He slides a hand to the back of John’s neck, warm and solid and gentle, tugs him in until John’s head is resting against his shoulder. Up close, he smells like weed and boy, and there’s a tiny, fading scar near his jaw where he cut himself two weeks ago, when he was trying to shave and send John ridiculous Snapchats at the same time.

John feels a rush of affection uncurl inside his chest. “No, it isn’t.”

 

 

;;

 

 

Next Tuesday, John opens his flat’s door to Paul with a gleeful shout of, “Mr. Carbonell loved the designs!” at the same time that Paul mutters, “Mate, you wouldn’t _believe_ how hard I butchered that Physics exam.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” John says with a laugh.

Paul waves his hand dismissively and takes a sip from the plastic glass he’s holding, which has a small red umbrella around the straw. He’s also wearing a ridiculous pair of tiny beach shorts. John can’t even try to feel fazed about his weird neighbours anymore. “Nah, don’t worry, it was bound to happen,” he says. “Now moving on to more important stuff—George broke the AC like two hours ago so we’re having a Broken AC Beach Party tonight.”

“Wait,” John says, narrowing his eyes. He backtracks to Paul’s outfit—a hideous short-sleeved shirt, deep blue with big fuchsia flowers, and something that is decidedly _not_ a pair of tiny beach shorts. Because it’s a _tiny skirt_. What the hell. Paul is standing on John’s doorstep wearing a yellow fucking skirt that barely covers his tattooed thighs and John wants to set himself on fire. “Wha—I mean—God, you all are fucking batshit.”

Paul walks past John to step inside the house, skirt flowing behind him. “C’mon, mate, we need to _unwind_. George just brought a bag of quality Maui weed, too.”

“Where exactly did he get Hawaiian weed at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday?”

“Um, are you _the cops_?” Paul asks, throwing John’s closet open. “He knows a guy. Do you have anything beach-y here, besides your attitude?”

Fifteen minutes later, John is sitting between George and Stupid, Scary, Bit Stinky Stan on George and Paul’s third-hand couch, wearing a crepe paper necklace over his old flamingo shirt and wondering what that says about the state of his life.

“Okay, I’ve got one,” Ivan says from where he’s sprawled out on the floor. “Would you rather eat a squirrel that was run over by a truck and left to decompose on hot pavement for like two days, or drink a glassful of live centipedes suspended in snot?”

“Is it my own snot?” Eric asks wisely.

“No, obviously. You don’t know whose snot it is, but it’s—runny. And bubbly. And suspiciously warm.”

Unwilling to spend another breathing second in this train wreck of a conversation, John wrinkles his nose and pretends that he’s hearing Paul call him from the kitchen—which is probably about to happen, anyway, because Paul spirals into a nervous breakdown every time he’s got to host a last-minute party. A frantic, terrifying, alcohol-fueled nervous breakdown.

“What were you doing? Why weren’t you _here_ —okay, doesn’t matter,” Paul says as soon as John steps foot into the kitchen, grabbing him roughly with the hand that isn’t holding a lifetime supply of straws. “How do we feel about bendy straws?”

There are at least fifteen packs of disposable napkins strewn all over the kitchen, a turquoise and gold garland tangled around Paul’s left leg, and a huge bag of ice melting into a highly-hazardous-for-half-wasted-blokes puddle on the floor. John’s jaw goes slack. “Um.”

“ _Um?_   That’s how we feel, _um?_ ” Paul tosses the straws inside a box that looks like a tiny party store and sighs, hands rubbing his temples.

John has never been so scared in his life. Give him decomposed squirrels and live centipedes swimming in snot, but don’t give him Paul McCartneys spiraling rapidly into crisis mode. He tries with, “I thought the umbrella ones were cute?”

“They don’t match my colour palette,” Paul, who half the time wears dye-tie yellow t-shirts with purple skinnies and a jean jacket thrown on top, says.

“There’s a colour palette?” John asks. He only registers his words as they’re leaving his mouth, when Paul’s eyebrows shot up and he gasps, horrified.

“You didn’t _notice_ —oh my God, I thought that was _obvious_ , I’ve been working on it for like an hour—this is awful I’m a terrible host—“

“Stop.” John grips Paul’s shoulders tightly. “Stop. It’s Tuesday and this is a last-minute party, you can’t expect it to go as smoothly as the ones you guys plan for weeks in advance. Let’s just have fun, yeah? No one is looking at the decorations.”

“ _I_ am looking at the decorations,” Paul mutters. “And I know it’s Tuesday but Eric texted his footie teammates and they’ll be here in like ten minutes, and some of my friends from the dancing classes, too, and also Ivan invited a bunch of artsy pretentious National Geographic blokes who I don’t even know and they’re all gonna judge the flat, so it needs to look _perfect_ because I’ve got a reputation to maintain. Also Hector is coming.”

John’s eyebrows shot up. “Hector? As in our elderly landlord?”

“Yeah. Like, I told him how we fucked up the AC and it kinda felt like I needed to soften the blow after, you know?”

“So you invited him over to your Hawaiian weed party.”

“You’re making it sound like it wasn’t a reasonable decision on my part.”

John chuckles, hands sliding down softly from Paul’s shoulders. “I’m not judging. Hector’s the only eighty-year-old I know who tells jokes that aren’t racist,” he says. “Let me help you get this sorted out, then. We should at least hang something over that wet spot on the living room’s wall if the landlord is coming. Is that from when George projectile-vomited after Eric’s birthday party?”

“Yeah,” Paul laughs. He crouches to untangle the garland that’s wrapped around his muscular, bare, unfair leg and hands it to John. “And we need to arrange the shot glasses, put the brownie in the oven, and find a place for Ivan’s strobe lights.”

“Okay,” John smiles, “I’m all in.”

Paul beams at him like it’s the best thing he’s heard all day. Crisis Status: Officially Averted.

The thing about Paul and George’s parties is: they _do_ have kind of a reputation. There are exorbitant amounts of booze, really good weed, carefully curated playlists and questionable people making questionable life choices—so all in all, they get pretty legendary. John sometimes wonders if his college experience peaked on the third week, when he was first invited to 2A for a party and spent six straight hours blazed out of his mind, singing along to the Spice Girls with Paul in a tiny karaoke machine and watching Ivan dance naked on top of the living room table.

It doesn’t help that Paul is a crazy person who needs to outdo himself every time. “Can you hold me for a sec while I hang the garlands, babe? This chair’s a piece of shit.”

“Yeah,” John says, grabbing Paul’s calves and looking anywhere but up, because Paul may be wearing a flowy mini skirt but John is decidedly _not_ a creep. “Ringo just texted me that he’s coming in a bit and that we can take the morning off tomorrow, like—ugh. Sometimes I forget how much of a genuinely good mate he is, you know?”

“He wants free booze, Jonathan.”

“That’s just your wildly uneducated assumption.”

Paul chuckles and turns around, turquoise palm tree cut-outs garland hanging neatly over the yellow-ish stain on the wall. “I never said it was a bad thing! I’m glad everyone’s coming and drinking, our new modeling contract can’t go uncelebrated after all,” he says. “Or, like, our incredible friendship.”

“Or your terrible Physics exam,” John laughs. “Or the broken AC.”

“See? It’s like Christmas arrived early. Now help me down before this stool self-destructs.”

Somewhere on John’s phone there’s a list Ringo made him type out of Not Strictly Friendly Interactions he and Paul share on a daily basis. It’s a long, shameful list, pretty much filled with stuff like _letting Paul braid my hair_ or _sitting on Paul’s lap when we’re high_ or _getting Paul double chocolate brownies when he’s moody_. John is not proud to say that he’ll have to add _picking Paul up from a stool and putting him down on the floor_ to, like, the top of that list. Highlighted and in capital letters, if possible.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that these people can make successful Tuesday parties a thing. By the time John and Paul are done setting up the strobe lights and Eric’s speakers and the huge pyramid of shot glasses Paul insists _must_ be arranged, it’s half past ten and the flat is packed, the cute girls from Paul’s jazz classes full-on grinding to Beyoncé’s Partition on the makeshift dancefloor, Eric’s footie teammates playing a heated drinking game and Ivan’s colleagues devouring a tray of pot brownies in a corner.

There are faces John doesn’t recognize, too. People from the life Paul leads outside of the moments they spend together, school friends and uni classmates and work colleagues—small remainders that there are parts of him John can’t see, stuff he doesn’t know, people and secrets they keep to themselves. John just asks George for a blunt, holds the sweet smoke in and waits for it to fall like a warm blanket over the sickly feeling pooling down in his stomach.

“Impressive how everyone adhered to the dress code this time,” he says, flopping onto the couch between Hector, who’s wearing a straw hat and flip flops, and George, who looks like he’s higher than the fucking Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. All in all, a regular Tuesday night in this fever dream of a building.

Hector points slowly at him, beer in hand and a bit of multicoloured confetti stuck to his grey moustache. “You’re having boy problems.”

George laughs. Uproariously. John slaps him on the back of his dumb head and huffs. “You don’t know me, Hector.”

“I know that look, though,” Hector tells him, in that wistful tone old people use when they reminisce about things like walking across an entire continent to get to school or seeing the dawn of the first millennium. “You’re gone for that Paul boy.”

With a long-suffering sigh, John throws his head back and lets his body slid slowly down the couch until he’s lying on the cushions. “I’m fucked,” he says. “I’m so fucked, Hector. He wants to be just mates and I want to, like, marry him and have his babies.”

“Been there, bro.” George exhales a long stream of smoke through his nose. “It’s like you pop a boner each time you see him but with your heart.”

John nods gravely. “A feelings boner.”

“You should go talk to him now,” Hector tells him, gesturing with his bottle to where Paul is swaying slowly on the dancefloor. “Can’t win if you don’t play, kid.”

“I don’t stand half a fucking chance,” John whines.

Apparently, this time it’s George’s turn to smack him on the back of the head. “Can you stop feeling sorry for yourself for like three seconds and _move_? He’s staring at you while he dances to this racy as fuck Jason Derulo song, Jonathan,” he grunts. “This is _the_ chance.”

John takes a moment to assess the scene on the dancefloor, eyes narrowed behind his glasses—and yeah, Paul _is_ kinda staring in their direction and mouthing _from eight until late I think ‘bout you,_ so for the first time in his life George might actually have a point. Or maybe Paul just wants to shag their landlord. Whatever it is, he must be feeling pretty confident about it, judging by the way he keeps looking at them as he sways his hips.

So John stands up, fueled by George’s Maui shit and his own lack of self-preservation instincts. He weaves his way through the clusters of people grinding slowly to Mine, the bass thumping in his chest, and Paul is only a few steps away but when John reaches him he’s already feeling hot all over, and then. Then everything goes to absolute hell.

“Hey, love! Hi?” Paul greets him, bright giggles ringing over the music, all high energy and pink cheeks and skin sheened with sweat. “You like this song?”

“I like it.” John knows he really shouldn’t step closer, knows he shouldn’t grab Paul’s waist with both hands and pull them flush together, but fuck it if he can stop himself when Paul is this gorgeous and this close. “Like it when you sing.”

Surprisingly, Paul doesn’t back away. He shifts closer instead, until his lips are ghosting over John’s ear and his fingers are tangled in John’s curls, pulling on them just a bit—which, holy fuck. John is probably going to die in three seconds. “ _I just wanna say you’re mine, you’re mine,_ ” Paul sings along softly, stubble scratching John’s jaw. “Saw you looking at me all night, baby. You know you can’t do that.”

John swallows, brain still stuck on the hot, firm press of Paul’s body against his, on the way Paul’s right hand is skirting up slowly along the edge of their chests. “You have no idea how good you look right now,” he blurts out then because fuck it, honestly, fuck it all.

Paul chuckles and hooks a hand under John’s chin, then slides his thumb unceremoniously into John’s mouth. Sweet baby Jesus in flip flops, John is officially getting hard right in the middle of Paul’s very crowded living-room now. He sucks slowly on it, feels the plush skin pressing against his tongue.

“You always want more, don’t you? Came here looking for me even after I told you this couldn’t happen. That’s not what good boys do, John,” Paul whispers, and holy _shit_ , this is Really Happening. John could scream. “I’d slap you for disobeying me—but you’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?”

John actually lets out a soft chuckle, tilting his head to the side so that Paul’s thumb slips out of his mouth. “Fuck you,” he breathes out, a little drool dribbling onto his chin, and God, he can feel Paul’s cock twitching against his thigh at that, hot and hard through the thin yellow fabric of his skirt.

“I should get you a ball gag,” Paul says, voice raw and eyes trained on John’s lips—and then.

Then it’s a blur of very quick, very unfair events: first, the smoke detector starts ringing. Second, someone who clearly doesn’t give a shit about their drunk friends’ dignity turns on the bright ceiling lights. Third, Paul mutters a very exasperated _fucking hell_ , adjusts his likely very nice cock, and just. Walks away. Skirt swaying, shirt half-unbuttoned.

John stands there for a moment, too dumbstruck to move his legs, the tiny part of his brain that isn’t short-circuiting thinking that he should try to pull a Taylor Swift and write some cheap, dramatic poetry about his misery to at least cash on it or something—until a hand claps him on the shoulder.

“Holy shit, you guys,” George says, in a half-shout that snaps John out of his new despair-fueled business plans instantly. “We should—we should probably get some water buckets or something.”

An hour and fifteen different levels of smoke inhalation later, a completely ash-covered Paul is still yelling at Ivan for crouching next to the living-room’s curtains to light a bong. George sits cross-legged on the floor between them, wearing an apron printed with a naked bodybuilder’s torso and wielding a tiny fire extinguisher that he keeps spraying on whoever looks closest to committing murder—and it’s fairly entertaining to watch, mostly because John is still a bit high on weed and bit drunk on Paul.

By the time they finish sweeping up the living-room and give up on scrubbing the new black stain on the wall, they’re so exhausted it’s starting to make them giddy. George drags a couple of cushions to the tiny balcony and they sit there for a long while, munching on cheap crisps and laughing and talking about pointless things, Paul’s head a steady, comforting weight against John’s shoulder the entire time, and it’s so, so easy John doesn’t even think it twice when Paul asks him, “You gonna sleep here tonight, then?”

“Yeah, mate, sure,” John tells him, instead of _I live literally twenty steps away, why would I ever?_

…Which would’ve probably been the correct, sane answer. Because John has slept over at Paul’s a load of times, but never after they almost got each other off in the middle of a crowded party. This is a First. And the most terrifying thing about it is that John isn’t even freaking the fuck out, for some reason—he’s in this weird, quiet limbo, like whatever’s about to happen is so out of his control he can’t even be arsed to worry about it anymore. C’est la vie, he decides. Lo que sera, sera. It is what it is.

That is, until they’re alone in Paul’s bedroom half an hour later and Paul asks him casually, “Think we can talk about earlier?”

Suddenly, it’s like John can hear sirens and megaphones in the distance— _vacate the premises, vacate the premises, Code Red, this is not a fucking drill._ Like every ounce of chillness he ever thought he had suddenly vanishes with a loud POP! and a cartoony cloud of smoke. Like his brain is made of nothing but panicked exclamation marks. Like—“Um. The dirty talk bit, you mean?”

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god why wasn’t he born with a stupid brain-to-mouth filter?

Paul just blinks at him and stops sliding on his pajama pants midway, which is honestly pretty unhelpful right now. “Uh—I mean—I guess, yeah,” he manages, bless him, face flushing a furious red. “That was a mistake, um. I know I was the one who started it but we just—can’t do that. Sorry.”

Okay. So John really wanted to think he was the coolest guy to ever make Paul consider ball gags, but it turns out he isn’t even ready for wherever this conversation—or this night—are heading, after all. He’s exhausted. And terrified. And a bit horny, but mostly because that’s just like his natural state of being. All possible combinations of those three things can only lead to the same obvious result: disaster.

He sighs, toeing off his Converse before sitting down at the end of Paul’s small bed. “Why, though? We were having fun. _You_ were having fun,” He picks at a loose thread on the quilt. “Why does it worry you so much?”

“It doesn’t _worry me_ ,” Paul air-quotes, walking frantically around the bed before plopping down next to John. “I just—we were entering, like, supremely dangerous territory earlier and I just don’t want things to go to hell now, yeah? Which is what usually happens whenever I start shagging anyone who isn’t a total jerk.”

“I _am_ kind of a jerk, though,” John tells him, desperately needing a diversion from this Deep Feelings Talk. “Maybe it’s enough to balance out whatever weird curse your dick has.”

Paul flings a pillow at him, which hits John square on the face before falling to the floor. “Shut up, you dumb fuck,” he says, more amused than exasperated. “I’m being serious. I wouldn’t give two shits about getting involved with you and fucking it up if you weren’t one of my best mates.”

Okay, so Paul seems very adamant on having this discussion. John swallows the lump at the back of his throat, eyes trained on the washed out Destiny’s Child poster pinned to the wall, and wonders if escaping through a window to avoid confrontation would be too disrespectful. Finally, he just decides to blurt it out— “That doesn’t have to _happen_ , yeah? You act like things are always gonna suck for you just because they’ve sucked in the past—and I get it, mate, I really do, because I feel like that a lot of the time, too, but that’s not how life is!”

“How is it, then?”

John just leans forward, hands clutched on Paul’s legs, and kisses him.

Paul tastes sweet like weed and kisses John back like he’s been waiting a whole lifetime for it, a rush of noses bumping and teeth clashing and fingers sliding up, up, up until they’re tangled in John’s hair, tugging a bit. He kisses like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, sucking softly on John’s tongue, kisses like thunder and crashing waves, like John’s the love of his life and not an eighteen-year-old kid who just happened to say the right thing at the right time.

Finally, it’s John who pulls back slowly, glasses sliding awkwardly to one side. After a breathless second, he manages, “You can do anything, Paul.”

“Stop talking,” Paul says roughly, voice raw, before leaning in to kiss John again.

It’s a hungry kiss, a dirty kiss, harsh and deep and open-mouthed, Paul’s hands fisting at John’s hair and John’s legs hooking urgently around Paul’s waist. John can’t think of anything but the hot drag of Paul’s tongue against his as they fall back on the bed easily. Paul smells like his ridiculous almond body wash, like fabric softener, like boy, and when John slides a tentative hand under his white Henley shirt Paul’s skin is still warm from the shower, stomach muscles pulling taut under John’s fingers. John tugs at the hem of Paul’s t-shirt, then, asking for permission—he gets a groan in return, and the kiss grows sloppy as Paul pulls it off himself before starting to unbutton John’s.

When John kisses Paul again, it’s on the smooth swell of his belly, mouthing at the thin trail of dark hair there that sticks out from the bright, stark tattoos on Paul’s skin. Paul’s body is strong, biceps bulging where he reaches up to grab the headboard, but his waist is tiny and his belly is soft, curves up in a little pouch that John sucks on gently. His cock is pressing up hard against his pajama bottoms and Paul wriggles every time it brushes John’s chin, makes these little husky noises that feel like sparks on the base of John’s spine.

 “Alright there, babe?” John asks him, chest heaving up and down, a hand reaching down to palm his own cock through his jeans because _fucking hell,_ it feels like he’s been hard for weeks or months or since the first morning he ran into Paul on this goddamn building’s stairs.

“Yeah,” Paul breathes, grinding up a bit. The only reason John doesn’t pass out from that is probably because he’s got a very nice cock to suck tonight. “You could stop the teasing, though.”

“I’m not teasing,” John says, tucking his fingers under the elastic of Paul’s pajamas and pulling them down unceremoniously. The cotton of Paul’s red boxer briefs is wet where the head of his cock is leaking precome and holy shit—holy _shit_ , it hits John  like a truck, that Paul is somehow real and under him and so fucking gone already. “I’m gonna blow you now, yeah?”

“Jesus Christ, John, yeah,” Paul says, between breathless and exasperated. “It’s obviously not gonna blow itself, you know.”

“You’re such a fucking jerk, honestly,” John snickers, feeling Paul’s hand already tightening into a fist in his hair, firm but gentle, not tugging or shoving him down even when John slides Paul’s boxers off and wraps his mouth around Paul’s cock in one smooth motion.

John sucks him off slowly, cheeks hollowing, tongue sliding up and down Paul’s length. Below him, Paul whimpers quietly, bucking his hips in tiny thrusts like he’s already feeling more than he’s willing to let John know. John splays a hand on Paul’s stomach, rubs circles with his thumb there until Paul’s muscles go soft under it, then starts working the head of Paul’s cock with his tongue—and it’s like Paul finally breaks apart at that, all throaty, boyish moans and legs spreading wider uncontrollably, more pliant than John’s ever seen him.

“Fuck, John,” he mumbles. “You’re really good at this, what the fuck.”

John pulls off of Paul’s cock and smirks up at him. “Been told, yeah,” he says, before sliding his mouth down Paul’s thighs and sucking a soft, purple mark on the pale skin there. “Bit insulting that you doubted it.”

Paul lets out a shuddery breath when John licks a stripe from his balls up to the tip. “I just—you’re. Young. Fuck.” His eyes flutter closed, back arching into it. “Are you jerking off?”

Okay, so John may be humping the bed. Which. Is a bit embarrassing to say out loud. “No?”

“C’mere,” Paul tells him, the fingers on his hair now tugging a bit. John moves up until Paul’s belly is pressed flush against his, until their lips are close enough that he can just lean in a bit to kiss Paul slowly—a lazy, long, grounding kind of kiss that has Paul melting against him, mouth puffy and wet. “Wanna watch you get yourself off, yeah?”

Instead of answering, John kisses Paul again, sloppy and deep. He can feel how Paul is unbuttoning his jeans for him, then Paul’s hand palming over his hard cock through the thin fabric of his boxers, the friction heavenly after being untouched for so long. When Paul finally pulls them down and gives John’s cock two steady tugs, John breathes a low _fuck, babe_ inside his mouth, and Christ, he can feel Paul’s cock jumping at his voice, can feel Paul starting to grind slowly against him.

“That’s so good, love,” Paul tells him when John takes himself in one hand, swiping a thumb over the head to get it wet. “Got me so close already just from watching you.”

He slides both hands down to John’s arse, squeezes it a bit as the length of his cock presses smoothly against John’s. They pick up an easy rhythm then, hips rolling steadily, bodies pressed together from their shoulders to their knees, and Paul just keeps kissing John through it, nibbling at his bottom lip and sucking at his tongue like he can’t get enough.

“Paul,” John mumbles, his brain going fuzzy as their pace grows erratic. “I—“

He wants to warn Paul that he’s close, that if Paul keeps kneading his arse like that and grinding on him like they’re back in the living-room dancing to Beyoncé he’s gonna come all over this stupid dry-cleaned quilt in ten seconds, but it’s like the words are missing in the ongoing riot inside his brain. Paul’s got him, though, always one step forward, always knowing and watching, “C’mon, babe, let go now.”

It’s quick, then—at the same instant that John throws his head back and finally lets go, lets his throat open and his muscles unclench, Paul’s open-palmed hand smacks him hard on the arse. It’s loud, crisp, leaves behind a burning, intoxicating kind of ache that runs from the bottom of John’s spine to the back of his neck like lightning, that has him shuddering and squirming as he comes and makes him light-headed after.

There are stars behind John’s eyelids and all of his muscles are pulsing and he’s feeling too dizzy but also too blissful, too wrecked by this night and this boy. He’s still riding that high when he feels Paul coming next to him a moment later, quick and muffled against the pillows. Blinking his eyes open groggily, John and watches Paul curl up around him, face flushed down to his neck and chest heaving up and down, lips shiny with spit, eyes glossy, a constellation of light freckles dusting his nose.

“Holy shit, mate,” Paul mumbles as he starts coming down slowly from his buzz, his voice rough like sandpaper. “We just did that. _I_ just did _that_.” He buries his face in John’s shoulders before bursting into a soft fit of giggles. “I smacked you in the arse, what the fuck.”

John’s laughter is loud and raucous, feels like bubbles rising inside his chest. “You were so into it, too,” he says, chest shaking. “Shit, that was fun.”

Paul breaks out into a bright grin as he leans up to press his mouth to John’s again—a short, not very successful kiss, since both of them are giggling like idiots. Or maybe that’s what success is all about, John thinks, hands skirting from the dimples at the bottom of Paul’s spine up to the valley between his shoulder blades. Maybe success isn’t about acing an exam or growing up without fuckups or giving kisses without teeth clinking—maybe it’s simpler things, like feeling Paul smile against the sweaty skin of John’s neck, so free and gorgeous and worlds away from the boy full of doubts he was just half an hour ago.

Yeah. That’s probably it.

 

 

;;

 

 

There’s a downpour the next morning, dark and loud, the rumble of thunder swinging John in and out of sleep. Paul’s bedroom feels like this quiet, secret place, miles away from the storm outside, shielding them from the wind and the car horns and the imminent group assignments. It’s silent except for the steady buzz of the slow ceiling fan and the rain tapping the window, soft grey light filtering through the thin curtains and pouring onto the room.

When John wakes up for the fourth time in a row, it’s to Paul’s sweaty hair on his mouth and Paul’s drool pooling on his chest. Could be worse, he guesses. In hindsight, he’s kinda thankful Paul insisted on changing the sheets last night, or they’d be sleeping on their own dried come, which would be like twenty different levels of icky.

So, last night. Right, yes. John looks down at Paul sleeping on his chest, at the bright tattoos standing out on the curve of his back, and kinda wonders if he is _really_ awake; like, _awake_ awake. He pinches himself on the arm two times, feeling like a loser after each one because it _does_ hurt—so, yeah, he’s either 1) awake, and Last Night was real, or 2) awake, and this is a sick simulation like The Truman Show or something. Which would honestly explain some pretty fucking weird moments in John’s life, like that time Ringo and Mimi made him drive them to a Ricky Martin concert, so he’s not complaining.

Okay, then. He’s awake, and Paul is asleep, and they had a Wisdom Wank last night, only, like, shared. A Double Wisdom Wank. The kind of wank that’s meant to clear one’s head in uncertain times—before Important Events like a first date, texting an ex, or deciding whether you and your best mate _should_ be shagging after all. And it worked, judging by the fact that John’s wearing Paul’s boxer briefs right now.

He also got _spanked_. By _Paul_. The sweet sweet memory is already making John enter morning wood territory when his phone starts ringing.

It’s Mimi, because of course she has to FaceTime John when he’s dealing with a semi and a naked boy drooling on top of him. This only serves as further evidence of John’s life being a cruel social experiment.

He fumbles with the phone and Paul fumbles with the sheets, apparently somewhere in the barrier between sleeping and waking up. Getting a hand on Paul’s hair and angling his iPhone’s camera with the other so it catches his face only, John swipes to the left to pick up Mimi’s call, and the screen blinks to life with the image of Mimi sitting on their living-room’s couch, a grey cat dozing on her chest.

Mimi says, “Morning, love,” at the same time that Paul rolls over, face-planting into his pillow, and mumbles a muffled, groggy “Morning, mate. What the fuck, my mouth still tastes like fucking Jager.”

Well, that could’ve gone better. At least Paul didn’t say _hey, man, what about a morning blowjob or two—_ though Mimi _is_ kinda looking at John like he just did, her sharp brows rising terrifyingly. “Well, that’s nice to know,” she says, sarcasm thick in her voice. “Who’s with you, John? Have you been drinking?”

Paul turns around slowly, like the protagonist of a horror movie who _knows_ he’s about to get slashed, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open—but John is chill. He’s got Mimi wrapped around his pinky since he was a dot in an ultrasound. He’s got this. “He’s my neighbour, Paul—you’ve met him! He’s the one who helped you carry your bags to the cab when we went shopping that other time?” he says, clearly the image of Coolness. “He just aced a test yesterday so there was a bit of a celebration last night, but, like, I’m good. Didn’t drink,” he waves a dismissive hand around. “I stayed over to help him nurse the hangover.”

Mimi purses her lips so hard John thinks they’re gonna either explode or disappear. “John.”

“What! I’m a good friend!”

 _Paul_ purses his lips. He turns around silently and reaches to look for an aspirin in the bedside table’s drawer.

Pointing to the screen with a long finger, Mimi adds, “I’m not happy with all those parties of yours, John. You should know better.”

“Uni is going _great_ , thank you for asking,” John says, desperately aiming for a change of subject. Paul swallows a pill dry next to him and falls back on the bed, eyes peeking curiously to the FaceTime stream. “Only three weeks for the runway show, remember? My prof is loving the designs! Did you get the pics I sent you?”

Mimi arches an eyebrow. John knows she knows what he’s doing. It works anyway. “Yes, love, I got your pictures. They look very nice. Could you find a model?”

John coughs. He also knows Mimi knows what he’s doing _with Paul,_ because she’s creepy like that. She could probably write a weekly magazine section about John’s sad love life with only, like, giving him one look through a phone screen. Creep-y. “Uh, Paul’s doing that, actually? Ringo didn’t want to so he thought he’d, like, help me out.”

“Sounds like a good friend,” Mimi says. Yeah, she definitely knows they’ve touched dicks. “I’ll meet you two at the runway, then, yes? Do you need me to bring you anything?”

“No, I’m—oh, yeah, my old glasses? The frame on the new ones got a bit bent. Uh, accidentally. I’ll get that fixed next month, you know, it’s only for, like, the meantime.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Mimi says, “I thought you were trying to take better care of your stuff, John. Grab your credit card and get that fixed, would you, I’ll pay for it—but this is the last time, you can’t go breaking a new pair of glasses every two months,” she says. “And do try and stop saying _like_ every three sentences, you are not thirteen.”

John grins. “I love you, you know?”

Mimi purses her lips, but they curl up at the corners with the hint of a smile. “I know. Now remind me how to hang this thing up, I think the house phone is ringing.”

“Red button,” John says, feeling Paul plant his lips against his chest. “Tell Catt Damon I said hi-iiii,” he sing-songs, squirming a bit.

“That is _not_ my cat’s name, John,” Mimi tells him, half-stern half-fond. “Goodbye, now. I’ll be texting you later.”

And then there’s the FaceTime home screen popping up on John’s iPhone again. Paul reaches to grab the phone and leaves it wordlessly on the side-table, then kisses John quick and sweet, mouth closed, before mumbling, “Morning. You mind stale Jager breath?”

John pretends to consider it for a moment. “Nah, mate,” he says then. “C’mere.”

They get each other off lazy and slow, Paul’s mouth everywhere, John’s mouth wrapped around two of Paul’s fingers. It feels easy and familiar, like playing shopping cart races in empty supermarket aisles, or hanging out at the porch of their building at 4 a.m. with a bowl of popcorn and a joint, or sitting at the foot of Paul’s bed to do homework together on a quiet, cloudy Sunday. John is left half wondering why they didn’t do this sooner; half knowing that it wouldn’t have been the same.

It’s almost noon when they stumble into the kitchen, Paul leading the way in his plaid grey pajama pants and John trailing behind, shooting a quick text to Ringo— _MATE IT HAPPENED!!!!! :DDDDD ps. cock wasn’t tattooed :( very nice looking tho 10/10 would put in mouth again—_ and they aren’t even touching each other, aren’t even close, but the first thing George says when he spots them from the kitchen counter is, “Oh my god. You guys finally fucked.”

John rolls his eyes and Paul flips George the finger, but they’re both kinda smiling as they pile up against the fridge’s door to look for something to eat. “Not your business,” Paul says, finding a Tupperware with Chinese leftovers from two nights ago and opening it cautiously to smell the contents.

“Oh, it _is_. How long today since that beach trip? I think I picked three months in the pool—“

Paul closes the fridge’s door with a loud thud, Tupperware clutched against his chest as he turns around slowly. “The what?”

“We made a pool, uh, with the lads,” George says, waving a hand around like it’s no big deal before grabbing his phone and typing up something. “Betting on how long until you two started shagging,” he says, eyes glued to the screen. “Aw, crap, I said three months. It’s two and a three weeks tomorrow.”

John is full-on laughing now, clutching his stomach as he falls back on the chair already designated as his. “Shit, man, you should’ve told us. We could’ve arranged it and split the prize or gotten, like, something the three of us could use. A new bong, maybe.”

George sighs, grabbing his fork to poke sadly at his bowl of reheated noodles. “Could’ve rented a _tandem bike_. So fucking cool.”

“I can’t believe you two,” Paul says. He’s standing in front of the microwave, hands on his hips and a frown creasing his forehead. John wants to kiss the angry spot between his eyebrows.

“I can’t believe you couldn’t keep your dick to yourself for seven more days, you twatbag,” George mumbles through a mouthful of noodles. “That just cost me twenty-five pounds.”

Paul opens the microwave’s door at the first beep and says, “I hate my friends.”

 

 

;;

 

 

The next three weeks go by in a blur of trying to cut shiny, infuriatingly sloppy fabric; getting pricked by every needle in the close vicinity of the apartment; franticly embroidering too many ugly tigers; and, on the rare occasion when John allows himself a break from sewing for the runway, sucking Paul off fast and dirty at the back of the tattoo shop.

John feels like he’s constantly skirting the edges of a mental breakdown, fueled by coffee and Red Bull and the waves of manic adrenaline he gets when he thinks he may not make it to the deadline. The guys keep looking for ways to help, bless them—George picks John up from uni almost every afternoon, loading John’s boxes of fabric and his old sewing machine at the back of the truck; Ivan offers to take the pictures for John’s portfolio; and Ringo works two shifts so John can have a full week off. They’re either genuinely excited for this or downright terrified of John’s nervous energy, which. Yeah. Probably the second option.

Paul’s got three finals ahead but he still stops by to check on John as much as he possibly can, a bunch of text books and highlighted notes clutched to his chest every time. Even when he’s freaking out about EQ controls and mixing levels and weird music theory terms John hasn’t heard about in his life, he still manages to look calmer than John feels. He’s clearly a robot from a faraway planet or something.

“Okay, you obviously need a break,” Paul tells him one rainy night, a skimmer in one hand and an apron printed with _I’LL BRING THE HOT DOG, YOU BRING THE BUNS_ tied tightly around his waist.

What can John say; he works at a sex shop, it’s not exactly weird to have novelty aprons lying around—or collars, or lacy knickers, or butt plugs. If he ever gets over his current emotional crisis, he’s going to talk Paul into ditching the apron and putting on a butt plug instead. For now, he summons up just enough energy to look up from the flowers he’s embroidering, mumbles, “No, I’m fine.”

“You’re curled into a ball on the living room floor, John. Cross-stitching.”

Okay, maybe Paul has a point. John sets his embroidery hoop aside and takes his glasses off to rub his eyes, then watches Paul’s bare feet approaching him from his spot on the floor. God, even his toes are hairy. Maybe Paul is some kind of Bigfoot-like being instead of a space robot, which would explain the high beard growth rate and how freakishly hungry he is at all times. Shit, John is in a complicated friends-who-shag relationship with an exotic woodland creature and he’s so worn out he can’t even be arsed to worry about it right now.

“C’mon up, babe, I’m running you a hot bath,” Paul says, because he might also be an actual angel.

“I gotta finish this bit,” John manages, instead of _are you a literal mythical creature or am I having insomnia-induced delusions again?_

Paul grabs John by the armpits and hoists him up, then holds him close for a moment, brushing John’s messy fringe back with his fingers. “No. You’ve been wearing my t-shirt for four days and you smell like Eric after a football match. You are taking a bath.”

If he wasn’t so damn tired, John would probably feel outraged at that. “Fine, whatever.”

Five minutes later Paul is running the water and helping John undress, his big, warm hands sliding John’s shirt up and off unhurriedly. It’s probably the best bath of John’s life, the hot water unkinking the knots on his shoulders and the rhythmic tapping of rain against the steamed up window almost lulling him to sleep. Paul slips in carefully behind him, works shampoo into John’s hair and washes it with soft scratches before rinsing it out with small handfuls of warm water. When the bath starts getting cold, Paul helps John out of the tub and wraps him in a towel, John’s eyelids heavy and his limbs loose.

“We should get you into bed,” Paul says, amusement and fondness woven into his tone. He holds John from behind to guide him as they stumble to the bedroom. “I made some pasta earlier, gonna leave it in the fridge and we can reheat it tomorrow, yeah? I also changed your sheets.”

Well, shit. Paul is a robot-Bigfoot-angel-hybrid, and John is in love.

 

 

;;

 

 

“You’re okay, bro,” George says, grabbing John strongly by the elbows.

“I’m okay,” John echoes. As if. He’s actually pretty positive he’ll projectile-vomit on every pretentious art student within a three-meter radius as soon as Paul pops up on the runway. “I’m _fantastic_.”

“You’re gonna smash it, you’ll see. You’ll be the next blueberry or whatever.”

John sighs and plops down on his seat. They got front row, which is Not Good because John hasn’t slept in seventy-two hours and there’s people taking pictures. “It’s Burberry, you idiot.”

Mimi shushes him. She’s carefully painting her lips like the emotional equivalent of a tsunami isn’t currently obliterating her nephew’s nervous system. John crosses his arms and huffs dramatically just to bother her, which hasn’t worked once in eighteen years but it’s still worth a try. She should be _freaking out_ , what the hell, John needs some support. It’s completely unfair that everyone sitting on this row of seats is having a chill, fun night—George stuffing his mouth full with a scandalous amount of appetizers, Ivan chatting up every girl in John’s class, Ringo quietly nursing a glass of champagne—whilst John seriously considers self-immolation.

Incredibly unfair.

Paul should be here. He’d probably steal half of George’s food and loudly proclaim that he and Ivan are married, which would totally make this better. Instead, Paul’s currently backstage, stuck in a long queue of fashion students and _hot models,_ ten minutes away from Showcasing John’s Designs to The World. Oh god. Oh _god_.

It’s quiet when the lights go down, the chirpy chatter of students and their families dissolving into hushed whispers. There’s music, the soft lounge kind that Ringo often plays at the sex shop, a professor reading names off a card as the models start pouring in with solid, calculated footsteps, and John’s heart is beating so wildly against his ribcage he thinks it might break it in two.

And Paul. Paul is stunning.

John taught him how to walk a runway just three days ago, using bits of leftover fabric and all of his socks to draw the outline of a makeshift catwalk on Paul’s living room floor. As John shouted out instructions—shoulders back, chin up, sway your hips, stick the butt out a bit—George laughed at them from the couch, throwing Doritos at Paul and recording everything with his phone. There were catcalls. There were also empty threats from Paul about making George die a fiery death if the video was ever uploaded to any social network.

Later, George helped John wax Paul’s chest, a permanent frown in George’s brow as he got chunk after chunk of dried wax and dark hair stuck to his Arctic Monkeys t-shirt. It went better than expected, all things considered, since Paul swore through watery eyes that he’d wax John’s legs back in revenge, and when that happened the pain kinda got John going. Thank god Paul apparently holds no judgment.

The sock outline thing worked out, it seems, because Paul walks down the runway with his head up and his eyes trained on a vacant point ahead, his expression the picture of determination. He’s like a rockstar and an expensive lawyer and a Saint Laurent model all rolled into one, soft curves and hard angles, his bright tattoos popping from beneath the sheer fabric of his white button-up. The lush cotton of the black trousers drapes over the curve of his butt and the bomber jacket fits perfectly across his broad shoulders, colorful embroidery glistening teal, orange and pink with every firm step. It _works,_ and when John’s name is called as Paul reaches the end of the runway and everybody starts clapping, it feels like only a tiny piece of the work belongs to John, like it would’ve been impossible to do any of it without his friends and his boy, and like he wouldn’t have it any other way.

An Important List:

  * John catches Mimi recording Paul’s walk. She smiles at her phone screen until Paul disappears behind the curtains and then turns to kiss John hard on the cheek.
  * There are no catcalls from either George or Ivan this time, but they _do_ shout a bit louder than everyone else and Ringo accidentally drops his glass of champagne when he reaches to yank John into a bear hug. John still kinda thinks he wouldn’t trade them for anything.
  * The show is still going twenty minutes later, when John’s phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s a text message from Paul— _you made it babes !! people loved it !! so proud of u xxx_ —and John just—has to take in a long, steadying breath, because Paul is so endearing it feels like John’s heart is doing backflips.



Instead of typing up a reply, John slides out of his seat and heads backstage. He finds Paul standing next to the tiny stairs that lead to the dressing rooms, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, mouth pursed and hair pointing everywhere. He’s got his oldest hoodie on, the light grey Adidas one that’s so stretched by time and use the cuffs reach his fingertips, and a dark, tight pair of jeans that John thinks may be his.

John watches him from a small distance, which kinda feels a bit creepy and melodramatic—but what the hell, the only reason he’s been functioning at all these last three weeks has been this person. He guesses he’s allowed a small share of melodrama. “Come here often?” he asks then, stepping forward until he’s in front of Paul.

Paul smiles softly and says, “First time, actually. Don’t think I’m coming back, though, there’s sparkly shit on my contacts and stressed people keep pointing scissors at me.” He blinks twice, eyes red around the corners, a bit of gold glitter dusted on his cheeks. “I feel like I’m a walking arts and crafts project.”

“You know that’s exactly what you’ve been these last few days, right?” John thumbs gently at Paul’s cheek, trying to swipe away the glitter. “Let’s go outside for a bit, yeah? It can get pretty crazy here when the show is over, and you look like you could use a break.”

“You’re not gonna watch your classmates’ stuff?”

John shrugs. “I’d rather watch you, I guess.”

Paul laughs, a hand on his belly and another clutching his backpack’s strap. “Is that—are you flirting with me?”

“Maybe,” John says, smirking, as they start to walk towards the doors.

“You don’t need to do that, you know. I’m already, like—“

“Completely gone for me.”

It’s dark outside, the air soggy and warm, clouds hanging heavy with the promise of rain. John rests his back against the sleek glass of the bus stop and curls a hand around Paul’s wrist to bring him close, the speckles of glitter peppered on Paul’s cheeks glistening under the warm streetlight.

“I was going to say shagging you, but yeah,” Paul says calmly. “That works, too.”

John tries to fight back a smile. “Yeah, I guess I also like you a bit. Kinda. You know—good hair, killer arse, can keep up with my bullshit most of the time,” he says before waving a hand around. “You’re okay.”

“You love me,” Paul laughs, looking down at John, his face cast in shadow—and John knows it’s a joke, but it still makes his heart feel like it’s gonna escape out of his chest, like there’s something growing hot and electric at the base of his throat.

He stands on his tiptoes and yanks Paul by the collar of his hoodie. The kiss is soft and slow, John’s tongue smoothing into Paul’s mouth, Paul’s thumbs fitting gently under John’s jaw. John closes his eyes and thinks about waves crashing against boulders, about yellow raincoats and sharp lightning and fingers dotted with dried ink, about Vans with holes and cheap weed and Paul’s chapped lips, the best kind of rough. He feels Paul smiling into the kiss and thinks about growing up, how he maybe kinda gets what that means, now; about his new friends and his new home and this boy who makes his cheeks hurt from laughing—and, well.

“I think I do, yeah.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> this!! is!! finished!! yay!!  
> ok, so this is my fic for the mclennon fanfic exchange. i had to write for [jenn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlaceandpaperflowers/pseuds/sunlaceandpaperflowers), and my prompt was "college AU," but there was another one who mentioned tattoos, too, so i kinda merged them. after telling everyone not to combine prompts. lol. don't listen to me. ever.  
> jenn: i hope you like this and have fun reading it <3 <3 ily and u are the best!! we hadn't talked much before i sorted everyone and you ended up being my partner, but i'm so glad we did afterwards. you're an awesome and very talented person and i'm very happy i was paired with you. every time we talked about how much we were suffering over these fics i wondered if you imagined i was writing yours, lol.  
> i want to thank my wonderful [beta](http://paul-ive-got-to-do.tumblr.com) (look at her blog she's the bestest!!) because oh GOD, this would've been impossible without you. thank you for all your very through corrections, for reading everything a hundred times, for all your patience and for always being so kind with me!!!  
> also to [paulspasta](http://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulsPasta/pseuds/PaulsPasta) and [honey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stonedlennon) for helping me out with ideas for this and basically holding my hand every time i cried because i couldn't do it lol i love you guys  
> OK bye i hope you enjoyed this!!! please leave me a comment here or at [tumblr](toppermostofthepoppermost.tumblr.com), they make me happy :D


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